Information,trust and the diffusion of smallpox vaccination: The Case of Scania in Sweden, 1802–1835

Abstract

This study deals with the diffusion of a new medical technology — vaccination against smallpox — in nineteenth-century Scania in Sweden. Using an aggregated sample of parishes as well as a micro-level dataset for four parishes, we investigate the socioeconomic as well as the geographical patterns of diffusion of vaccination in the province. We also relate the adoption of vaccination across geographical areas, as well as across social groups, to the availability of information, ability to acquire and process this information, and to levels of social capital and trust in society. Our results point to the conclusion that while vaccination spread very quickly geographically after its introduction, there were considerable differences between social groups. The better situated, betted educated, landholding peasants were more ready to adopt the new technology of smallpox vaccination. This had little to do with better access to economic resources as vaccination in general was provided free of charge. Instead we hypothesize that it was related to a higher ability to acquire and utilize the information available, and/or a higher level of trust in the authorities among these peasants.     

Optimal Structure of Technology Adoption and Creation: Basic versus Development Research in Relation to the Distance from the Technological Frontier*

Many economists maintain that in order to advance economic growth Asian countries should focus more on basic research than on technology adoption, and more on the supply of skilled workers than the supply of unskilled workers. In this context, this paper presents a theoretical model and empirical evidence to explain the observation that a country in which the level of technology approaches the technology frontier tends to rely more on technology creation than adoption, and invest more in basic research than in development. The model shows that technology creation involves both basic and development research processes, whereas technology adoption uses only the latter process. Therefore, R&D investment in our model involves three different processes: basic research in technology creation, development in technology creation, and development in technology adoption. The results suggest first that the rate of growth is positively correlated with the level of basic research activities in the technology creation sector, if a country's technology gap with the technology frontier is small enough. Second, an increase in the efficiency of the education system for highly skilled workers raises the level of basic research and the rate of growth. Third, verifying these theoretical results, empirical analyses using panel data from Korea, Japan and Taipei, China show that the narrower the distance to the technological frontier, the higher the growth effect of basic R&D, which indicates that the share of basic R&D matters for economic growth. Finally, the results also show that the quality of tertiary education has a significantly positive effect on the productivity of R&D.     

Ethnic-specific infant care practices and infant mortality in late Imperial Russia

The Russian Empire had the highest infant mortality rate in Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century. Using a variety of official statistical sources and qualitative evidence, this paper documents uniquely high infant mortality among ethnic Russians. In contrast, among other ethnic groups of the empire, infant mortality rates did not exceed those of the European countries by much. The evidence suggests that the explanation for the Russian infant mortality pattern was ethnic-specific infant care practices, such as the early introduction of solid food, which increased the incidence of lethal gastrointestinal diseases. Our findings highlight the importance of traditional infant feeding practices in mortality in pre-industrial societies.     

Do E‐verify mandates improve labor market outcomes of low‐skilled native and legal immigrant workers?

We examine the impact of the 2007 Legal Arizona Workers Act (LAWA) on employment outcomes of low‐skilled legal workers. We use the synthetic control method to select a group of states against which the labor market trends of Arizona can be compared. Our results suggest that contrary to its intent, LAWA does not appear to have improved labor market outcomes of legal low‐skilled workers who compete with unauthorized immigrants, the target of the legislation. In fact, we find some evidence of diminished employment and increased unemployment among legal low‐skilled workers in Arizona. These findings are concentrated on the largest demographic group of workers—non‐Hispanic white men. While they are less likely to find employment, those who do have on average higher earnings as a result of LAWA. The pattern of results points to both labor supply and labor demand contractions due to LAWA, with labor supply dominating in terms of magnitude.     

The migration experience of the population of Russian regional centers, based on a sociological survey in 10 cities

Using a sociological survey of the population in 10 regional centers of the Russian Federation as a case study, the article studies the migration experience of Russians (birthplace, moving rate, length of residence at the site of survey, regions or countries of origin). The results are compared in great detail with the 2002 All-Russia Census.     

The brain drain and income taxation: Canadian estimates

It has recently been proposed that a surfax be levied on the incomes of skilled immigrants from LDCs to DCs, with the proceeds used for developmental spending in LDCs. This paper presents estimates of the amounts which would have been collected by such a surfax in Canada in 1972 if it had been levied at a 10 per cent rate on disposable (after regular income taxes) income, assuming skilled immigrants were subject to the surtax for a period of ten years following immigration. Estimates of the elasticity of the response of immigrant flows to such a surtax are also presented.     

Trade,technology, and the labour market: impacts on wage inequality within countries

This paper focuses on the widening wage inequality between skilled and unskilled workers within countries and discusses whether trade and technology have contributed to this trend. The paper develops an analytical framework for wage inequality that traces the determinants and their relative roles in wage inequality in different stages of the development of trade theory, especially those considering new evidence after 2011. We find that technology plays a key role in the rise of wage inequality in most countries, while trade plays an increasingly crucial and more complex role in recent years. Skill supply institutions, such as education systems supplying skilled labour or unions participating in wage‐setting processes, suppress the rise of wage inequality in some countries. The paper further outlines the mechanisms through which trade affects wage inequality, including offshoring, firm heterogeneity, labour market frictions and global value chains. We find that trade has indirect effects on technology, which further enlarges the wage inequality among skills. The paper also discusses the policy implications of the impacts of trade and technology on wage inequality.     

Mechanical innovation in the industrial revolution: the case of plough design

Variations in levels of embodied technology generated variations in English plough prices in 1770. Using plough prices as a quality index, this article explains size and daily output of plough teams. It shows that variations in plough technology were due to technological change—not static optimization—and village plough technology was influenced by neighbouring villages. But technological advance was not constrained on the demand size: farmers purchased the best ploughs available. Rather, local supply of technology was the limiting factor. Technological change, urbanization, and information networks are rejected as explanations of local supply of technology. The key factor was market density.     

俄侨音乐教育对哈尔滨城市音乐文化的影响

19世纪末20世纪初，大批俄国侨民涌入哈尔滨。其中的俄侨音乐家在哈开设音乐学校，举办音乐会，组建交响乐团、歌剧团、合唱团等，并面向广大市民进行演出，将欧洲主流音乐文化形式引入哈尔滨，为哈尔滨市的音乐文化发展奠定了历史基础。     

Strangers in a strange land: citizenship and the immigration debate in Lesotho

Lesotho, a small sovereign country located within the borders of the Republic of South Africa, displays a paradox as regards immigration. It lacks the attributes of a typical receiving country, but it has been attractive to immigrants, especially from those countries in sub-Saharan Africa which are not members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Lesotho's attraction to immigrants is explained largely by its ability to offer better remuneration for skilled workers than many non-SADC sub-Saharan African countries, and by its strategic location as an easy transit gate into South Africa, widely perceived as the ‘Europe’ of the continent. However, the influx of immigrants into Lesotho has generated a wave of anti-foreigner feelings among sections of the population and heightened the debate about the relevance of foreigners to national development. The paper reiterates the principal conventional arguments against immigration: that it compromises jobs, raises crime rates, intensifies the spread of diseases, undermines the homogeneity of the state and nation and exerts additional strain on the country's already overstretched resources. Demonstrating the limits of these arguments, the paper argues that for Lesotho, grappling with unemployment and manpower shortages, immigration is an asset rather than a liability because it creates jobs, brings in skills that are otherwise in short supply and raises the country's international profile and competitiveness.     

中国农民负担的演变:1978-2010

改革开放30多年来,我国农民负担的演化大致经过这样几个阶段：改革开放初期的突显,接着不断加重、膨胀,然后通过税费改革逐渐回落,税费改革后农民负担依然存在,只是负担的形式和内容发生了变化,实质并没有变化。文章通过对我国农民负担演变的历史考察,提出的结论是：要从根本上解决我们农民负担问题,需要从政府、市场和农民等方面综合考虑,统筹城乡协调发展,彻底改变我国城乡分割的二元经济结构。具体来说,要做到以下几个方面：增加农民收入、实行惠农政策、处理好中央、地方和农民之间的关系、实行全民同等待遇共享改革成果等。     

中国土地制度改革论析

土地问题是三农问题的核心,解决好土地问题是解决三农问题的根本.工业化和城市化带来的发展利益,在农民与国家、企业和市民之间分配的比例,决定于农民对于土地所拥有的权力.权力小,所分配的利益就少;权力大,所能分配的利益就多.因此,中国农村土地改革的目标应该是实现国家政策法律保护下的农民的土地所有权.     

The immigration of Third World professionals to Canada: 1968–1973

In this paper we estimate a reduced form equation for highly skilled immigration to Canada during the period 1968–1973. The purported open immigration policy during this period implied that a relatively unregulated flow of immigrants came to Canada. We found to the contrary that the Third World immigrant flow was carefully regulated and responded significantly to four principal variables: the number of job vacancies by occupation, competing opportunities in the United States, the total flow of Third World immigrants and the number of movers from the country under consideration. The income variable never proved significant.     

Overcoming the Egyptian cotton crisis in the interwar period: the role of irrigation,drainage, new seeds,and access to credit†

After experiencing a period of spectacular growth during the late nineteenth century, the Egyptian cotton sector underwent a phase of stagnation, which was followed by a gradual and steady increase in output during the interwar period. Drawing on a new panel dataset at the province–year level, this article explores the determinants of the upturn in cotton output, running a horserace between credit, seed technology, and infrastructure. In order to address endogeneity concerns, an instrumental variable approach is adopted, using a modified version of Bartik's shift‐share instrumental variable. Our results provide supporting evidence that peasants switched to a lower‐yielding cotton variety as a response to changes in relative price. Moreover, our production function estimates show that two key factors had a positive impact on output growth: credit availability and the adoption of new cotton varieties.     

恩格斯关于农民理论的理解——读《法德农民问题》

恩格斯在《法德农民问题》中全面系统地分析了小农、大农和中农以及大土地占有者的特点,并且阐述了在农业合作化过程中无产阶级对他们的态度。     

Emotions,trading practices and communication in transnational itinerant trade: encounters between ‘Rucksack Russians’ and their customers in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Finland

ABSTRACT

This article examines relations between ‘Rucksack Russians’, itinerant traders from Russian Karelia, and their local customers in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century rural Finland. Finland was a part of the Russian Empire, but, according to Finnish law, itinerant trade was illegal for people without citizenship rights in the Grand Duchy. The trade was, thus, illicit, although often seen through the fingers. We study trader–customer relations through emotions, trading practices and communication, with a special focus on the consumption of women. We argue that analysing the relations from these perspectives deepens the understanding of the functions of itinerant trade for the shaping of a consumer society. For access to a consumer perspective, we use ethnographic questionnaires, a source type that historians have acknowledged only in recent decades. The questionnaires complement and nuance the predominantly negative attitudes towards itinerant trade conveyed in the newspapers, which mainly represent the viewpoints of the authorities and local merchants. Through the theoretical perspectives and through shifting focus from the consumption of the elite to that of that of the lower strata of society, the article offers a fresh take on such aspects of trader–consumer relations that previous historical research on itinerant trade has overlooked.     

The impact of E‐Verify mandates on labor market outcomes

A number of states have adopted laws that require employers to use the federal government's E‐Verify program to check workers' eligibility to work legally in the United States. Using data from the Current Population Survey, this study examines whether such laws affect labor market outcomes among Mexican immigrants who are likely to be unauthorized. We find evidence that E‐Verify mandates reduce average hourly earnings among likely unauthorized male Mexican immigrants while increasing labor force participation among likely unauthorized female Mexican immigrants. Furthermore, the mandates appear to lead to better labor market outcomes among workers likely to compete with unauthorized immigrants. Employment rises among male Mexican immigrants who are naturalized citizens in states that adopt E‐Verify mandates, and earnings rise among U.S.‐born Hispanic men. There is no evidence of significant effects among U.S.‐born non‐Hispanic whites.     

Internal immigrant mobility in the early 20th century: evidence from Galveston,Texas

Between 1907 and 1914, the “Galveston Movement,” a philanthropic effort spearheaded by Jacob Schiff, fostered the immigration of approximately 10,000 Russian Jews through the Port of Galveston, Texas. Upon arrival, households were given train tickets to pre-selected locations west of the Mississippi River where a job awaited. Despite the program’s stated purpose to locate new Russian Jewish immigrants to the Western part of the U.S., we find that roughly 85 to 90 percent of the prime-age male participants ultimately moved east of the Mississippi, typically to large Northeastern and Midwestern cities. We use a standard framework for modeling location decisions to show destination assignments made cities more desirable, but this effect was overwhelmed by the attraction of religious and country of origin enclaves. Economic conditions appear to be of secondary importance to our ethnic measures, even for participants at the top of the skill distribution.     

Does School Quality Matter? Evidence from the Hong Kong Experience

This paper analyses the differential returns to education and to language ability of natives and Chinese immigrants in Hong Kong. The large difference in quality between Hong Kong schools and Chinese schools provides a natural experiment for evaluating the effect of school quality on students' performance in the labor market. We show that the rate of return to schooling is more than three times higher among local-born workers than among Chinese immigrants to Hong Kong. Our analysis also suggests that English language education is one important component of the success of the Hong Kong education system.