新教改革的经济学分析

本文旨在从经济层面解释新教教会最初的成败。本文认为,通过操纵教义、排除异己以及各种形式的价格歧视,中世纪的罗马天主教会最终将其寻求Z商品“精神服务”的信徒置于叛教的边缘。这种垄断的做法鼓励了竞争对手的进入,其中有些对手与国内政府是同盟。本文假定,以封建制衰落、财富分配相对不稳定为特征的新兴企业家社会鼓励新教的进入,而主要是挥霍而不是创造财富的更具同质性的寻租社会则阻碍新教的进入。在这些社会中,罗马教会更有可能延续其价格歧视的做法。通过将长子继承制和城市增长作为财富稳定性的替代指标,可以对这一命题进行非正式的检验。     

Women,medieval commerce,and the education gender gap

We investigate the historical determinants of the education gender gap in Italy in the late 19th century, immediately following the country's Unification. We use a comprehensive newly-assembled database including 69 provinces over 20-year sub-samples covering the 1861–1901 period. We find robust evidence that in 1861, at Unification, gender equality in education is still positively associated with the medieval pattern of commerce, along the routes that connected Italian cities among themselves and with the rest of the world. The beneficial effect of medieval commerce on female education relative to male persists after we control for a broad set of confounding factors reflecting the geographic, economic, political, and cultural differentiation of medieval Italy. The long-term influence of medieval commerce dissipates only gradually after nationally-directed educational policies are implemented after Unification. This is consistent with the hypothesis that its transmission occurs through slow-changing cultural beliefs, as confirmed by further suggestive evidence of its influence on contemporary outcomes related to gender and family culture.     

Economic sociology: a historical perspective

In this paper we briefly recall what is meant by economic sociology, basing our definition principally on the works of R. Swedberg and M. Cranovetter. We then focus on the questions and problematics which are more particularly relevant to the history of economic and sociological thought in such a way as to make explicit the kind of past in relation to which economic sociology is most pertinent. We shall thus be induced to correct certain explanations and to propose a slightly different perspective on the origin of economic sociology. This historical work enables us to formulate a definition of economic sociology based on two key concepts - economic institution and economic action - and allows us to articulate what economic sociology actually is, rather than merely describing what it is not. Finally, we show that these propositions are not without interest in relation to the present-day economic sociology that tends to go by the name - made fasionable by Granovetter and Swedberg - of ‘New Economic Sociology.’     

COMPARING PER CAPITA INCOME IN THE HELLENISTIC WORLD: THE CASE OF MESOPOTAMIA

Until quite recently, GDP growth between ca. 1 ce and the late Middle Ages was considered non‐existent or even negative. Recently, largely on account of increasing interest in historical national accounting, the late‐medieval figures have been revised upward, in line with an upward adjustment in the estimated shares of manufacturing and pasture. Leaving GDPs dating from the ancient world unaltered would consequently generate figures indicating increased economic growth during the first millennium ce . A considerable number of studies of the late‐medieval period (the object of increasing attention on the part of specialists in early economic history) have caused estimates for the ancient one to be revised upwards, essentially leaving estimates of the changes in economic development over time unaltered. These studies, however, have focused on the Roman Empire and Italia while there is a consensus in the literature that it was quite unrepresentative of all ancient societies with its relatively high share of GDP from the manufacturing sector of the economy. We therefore estimate a new per capita income for another contemporary agrarian society: ancient Mesopotamia. In addition, by examining manufacturing and pasture—the two main reasons for higher income which have been identified in the literature—we have found a tentative explanation for the fact that ancient Mesopotamia's per capita income deviated from that of Rome.     

Roots of gender equality: the persistent effect of beguinages on attitudes toward women

This paper is concerned with the historical roots of gender equality. It proposes and empirically assesses a new determinant of gender equality: gender-specific outside options in the marriage market. In particular, enlarging women’s options besides marriage—even if only temporarily—increases their bargaining power with respect to men, leading to a persistent improvement in gender equality. We illustrate this mechanism focusing on Belgium, and relate gender-equality levels in the 19th century to the presence of medieval, female-only communities called beguinages that allowed women to remain single amidst a society that traditionally advocated marriage. Combining geo-referenced data on beguinal communities with 19th-century census data, we document that the presence of beguinages contributed to decrease the gender gap in literacy. The reduction is sizeable, amounting to a 12.3% drop in gender educational inequality. Further evidence of the beguinal legacy is provided leveraging alternative indicators of female agency.

     

Religion,economics and politics: The Bishops and Keynes in the post-Keynesian ERA

This paper makes a proposal for reintroducing sociological or social economics into contemporary economic science. Such a reintroduction is proposed to be substantive, by analyzing the social structuring of the economy, and formal, by including sociological/social economics in the current (JEL) classification system of economic disciplines (code A.15). Both epistemological and ontological arguments can be presented to support the proposal. Epistemological arguments invoke the presence of essential components of sociological economics in the development of economic thought, and ontological arguments stress the role of social factors in economic life. In this paper I present primarily epistemological (theoretical-methodological) arguments for sociological economics, and secondarily ontological ones. I show that the present designation, sociology of economics, is something different from sociological or social economics in that the former refers to economic epistemology (knowledge) and the latter to economic ontology (reality). I conclude that, in addition to a sociology of economic science, we need a sociology of economic life.     

FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE,BUT HOW ABOUT A RECESSION?

In light of the current economic crisis, we estimate hazard models of divorce to determine how state and national unemployment rates affect the likelihood of a divorce or separation. With data in the United States over the 1978–2008 period from the 1979 NLSY, we find some evidence indicating that a higher unemployment rate increases the risk of a marriage ending for couples in years 6–10 of marriage (suggesting counter‐cyclical divorce/separation probabilities) but has no significant effect for couples in years 1–5 of marriage and those married longer than 10 years. The estimates are generally stronger in magnitude when using national instead of state unemployment rates and when considering just divorces rather than the first observed divorce or separation. (JEL J12)     

Consumer Rationality and Consumer Sovereignty

Important social benefits of the market system are predicated on the assumption that consumers can effectively pursue their interest in the marketplace. Cause for concern exists to the extent that high consumption expenditures lead to relatively low levels of personal savings in the U.S. To the extent that they do, in fact, over spend, consumers appear to deviate from economic assumptions of rationality. This paper examines four conceptions of rationality (two variants of rational choice theory, institutionalism, and one derived from economic sociology), with a view to evaluating implications for consumer sovereignty under each. By explicitly accounting for differences among individuals, economic sociology appears to offer more realistic policy solutions.     

Understanding the wage patterns of Canadian less skilled workers: the role of implicit contracts

Abstract .  We examine the wage patterns of Canadian less skilled male workers over the last quarter-century by organizing workers into job entry cohorts. We find entry wages for successive cohorts declined until 1997 and then began to recover. Wage profiles steepened for cohorts entering after 1997, but not for cohorts entering in the 1980s – a period when start wages were relatively high. We argue that these patterns are consistent with a model of implicit contracts with recontracting in which a worker's current wage is determined by the best labour market conditions experienced during the current job spell.     

Sociology of economics or sociology of economy? theoretical-methodological arguments for sociological economics

This paper makes a proposal for reintroducing sociological or social economics into contemporary economic science. Such a reintroduction is proposed to be substantive, by analyzing the social structuring of the economy, and formal, by including sociological/social economics in the current (JEL) classification system of economic disciplines (code A.15). Both epistemological and ontological arguments can be presented to support the proposal. Epistemological arguments invoke the presence of essential components of sociological economics in the development of economic thought, and ontological arguments stress the role of social factors in economic life. In this paper I present primarily epistemological (theoretical-methodological) arguments for sociological economics, and secondarily ontological ones. I show that the present designation, sociology of economics, is something different from sociological or social economics in that the former refers to economic epistemology (knowledge) and the latter to economic ontology (reality). I conclude that, in addition to a sociology of economic science, we need a sociology of economic life. There is nothing surprising in the habit of economists to invade the sociological field. A major part of their work—practically the whole of what they have to say on institutions and on the…[social] forces which shape economic behavior—inevitably overlaps the sociologist’s preserves. In consequence, a no man’s land or everyman’s land has developed that might conveniently be called economic sociology … [or sociological economics] (Schumpeter 1956:134). The author is grateful to two anonymous referees for their constructive comments on an earlier version of this article.     

‘‘Isn't it time you were finishing?’’: Women's Labor Force Participation and Childbearing in England, 1860–1920

Abstract

This contribution examines the relationship between women's labor force participation (LFP) and fertility in three industrial towns of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century England from a feminist economic perspective. The study augments existing statistical approaches to demographic history by discussing women's motivations. Women's LFP influenced their likelihood of family limitation (via effects on both age at marriage and marital fertility). Where women were most likely to be in paid work, they were most likely to limit family size. It is further argued that the diversity of LFP patterns is the principal explanation for the varied patterns of fertility decline in different parts of Britain.     

Political markets? Politics and economics in the emergence of markets for biodiversity offsets

This paper analyses the relationship between politics and performativity of economics in the emergence of markets for biodiversity offsets. While the role of economics in constructing markets has been demonstrated by sociology and social studies of science, it has also become apparent that politics plays an important role in the material outcome of economic experiments. Two case studies of the creation of markets for biodiversity offsets are analysed, in the United States and England. The findings suggest that the creation of both markets is rooted in the language, concepts and models of economics. Politics, on the other hand, functions as a mediator of the material expression of those models. Through this mediation effect, similar economic models are performed differently, resulting in a variety of markets. This suggests that the material outcomes of processes of market creation are not defined at the outset, but can be influenced by political processes.     

Escaping high mortality

This paper develops an economic analysis of mortality to account for the mortality decline during the demographic transition. We propose a unified growth model in which there is intra- and intergenerational health transmission: parental health affects child survival and investments in early life improve health over the entire life-cycle. Based on data from England and Wales between 1640 and 2000, we show that the role of economic changes in mortality is larger than previously estimated. As in current estimates, contemporary income has a minor impact on mortality change. Most of the economic influences, however, are unaccounted for by contemporary relationships.      

Intra‐household bargaining power and household expenditure allocation: Evidence from Iran

This article examines the role of intra‐household bargaining power on household expenditure patterns in Iran to see whether women’s empowerment can achieve similar results in Iran as we have seen it achieve in other countries of the world. This study is insightful because it tells us whether Iranian women, who have experienced both economic and noneconomic constraints over many years, can utilize increased power toward economic development. The bargaining power is measured by the sex ratio in the marriage market. Using the Household Income and Expenditure Survey in Iran, we find that greater bargaining power of women contributes significantly toward greater provision of education and health expenditure within the household, creating a potential for an increase in welfare for the next generation.     

Women's Empowerment and HIV Prevention in Rural Malawi

This study examines the impact of women's empowerment on attitudes toward HIV prevention using the Malawi Diffusion and Ideational Change Project (MDICP), a panel dataset of over 1,200 married women in rural Malawi from 1998 to 2008. Results indicate that an increase in women's bargaining power promotes adequate HIV prevention strategies, namely condom use within marriage and HIV-related spousal communication. Own income, language skills, and awareness of options outside marriage also play an important role. By estimating a constant for each individual in the sample, the analysis controls for the impact individual-specific, nonmeasurable characteristics have on attitudes toward prevention. It captures the impact of HIV campaigns and increases in HIV prevalence over time on prevention behavior by using (regional) time trends. The findings are highly comparable across different econometric specifications and suggest substantial gains from placing greater emphasis on women's empowerment to effectively combat the spread of HIV, particularly in developing countries.     

国内外青年婚恋研究综述

婚恋、家庭研究在社会学领域中一直占有重要地位,是社会科学的其它领域如微观经济学、心理学、人口学中关注的重点。对于青年婚恋专题的研究,涉及的专著与论文较多。加强对国内外学者相关文献的整理,可厘清青年婚恋研究的基本趋势及其一般路径。     

Joseph A. Schumpeter’s contributions in the area of fiscal sociology: a first approximation

Fiscal sociology deals with the ramifications of the fiscal activities of the state into areas which are not their primary target. These effects may occur in sectors not directly affected such as related markets, but they may also occur outside the economic sphere proper, such as in politics, culture, religion, or society at large. Schumpeter contributed to the research project of fiscal sociology throughout his life. In this first approximation, his contribution is discussed in terms of his appreciation of three important scholars who all made landmark contributions to fiscal sociology: Franz Oppenheimer, Werner Sombart, and Gustav (von) Schmoller.JEL Classification: B15, H39     

Male and Female Happiness in Japan During the 2000s: Trends During Era of Promotion of Active Participation by Women in Society

Female happiness has been paradoxically declining over recent decades in reverse proportion to expanding opportunities for women in developed countries, but this subject has not been explored in Japan. Using JGSS, we found that Japanese women have been slightly happier in both absolute and relative terms to men in the 2000s. While happiness of men aged 35–49 and 65 and over temporarily declined in the first half of the decade, women in age groups 20–34 and 65 and over gained happiness in the second half. Moreover, trends in life satisfaction in terms of economic aspects are similar for men and women, slightly advantageous to men in marriage, and largely advantageous to women in non‐market and non‐family aspects.     

Law, Property, and Marital Dissolution

This paper challenges the view that legal rights are not important in affecting whether people divorce, but it puts as much emphasis on property rights (given, for example, by the law on alimony) as on dissolution rights. The paper sets out two stylised models of marriage and examines the consequences of fuller compensation for economic sacrifices made during marriage. If the dominant economic issue in a marriage is who undertakes household tasks then a law giving fuller compensation makes divorce more likely. If the dominant issue is child custody, divorce is less likely.