Money without a State: Currencies of the Orthodox Christians in the Balkan Provinces of the Ottoman Empire (17th –19th centuries)

The paper presents a historical and theoretical analysis of the issue of local currency (coins and paper money), undertaken in various forms by the Orthodox Christians in the Balkan provinces of the Ottoman Empire (XVII –XIX centuries). The paper has two main goals. The first is to enrich the discussion on the diversity and complexity of monetary practices in historical perspective by including experience of the Ottoman Empire. The second is to contribute to a better understanding and rethinking of the economic and social processes in the Ottoman Empire which helped its centuries-long resilience and vitality. In fact, the monetary architecture of the Ottoman Empire was relatively complex. Despite the tension between its different monetary areas and layers, on the whole it managed to ensure flexibility, sustainability, and efficiency in the long-run.     

The institutional legacy of the Ottoman Empire: Islamic rule and financial development in South Eastern Europe

This paper uses a historical experiment - the occupation of South Eastern Europe by the Ottoman Empire - to shed light on the persistence of financial development. Interest-lending prohibition persisted under Islamic rule much longer than in the rest of Europe. The unique history and political fragmentation of the region allows investigating within-country effects, in six countries that were formerly only partly occupied by the Ottoman Empire. Former Islamic rule is consistently associated with lower contemporaneous formal financial development, both across and within countries. It is associated with a decrease in bank penetration by 10% across countries and 4% within countries. However, within country, the effect of the Ottoman Empire is confined to financial development. There is no association between former Ottoman rule, income, small and medium sized enterprise development or entrepreneurship. The effect is robust to controlling for a wide number of observable characteristics. Moreover, localities with Armenian, Jewish or Greek minorities, who were allowed to practice interest lending under Ottoman rule, have higher levels of bank penetration. By contrast, Islamic religion and trust in the financial system play no role in explaining such long-term persistence.     

Islamic Economics in the Late Ottoman Empire: Menâpirzâde Nuri Bey's Mebâhis-i İlm-i Servet

The existing literature on Islamic economics suggests that Islamic economics is a twentieth-century phenomenon with its roots in medieval Islamic intellectual and theological history, thereby leaving a centuries-long gap in the history of Islamic economic thinking. This study aims at taking a first step towards filling this gap by examining a nineteenth-century example of Islamic economics in late Ottoman economic literature. Suggesting a broader definition of Islamic economics, this article investigates a prominent Ottoman intellectual's efforts to define, reveal, and revive a tradition of Islamic economics in historical and intellectual context.     

Testing the lawyer-induced litigation hypothesis in Europe

Utilizing a European panel dataset, we contribute to the scant empirical literature on the lawyer-induced litigation hypothesis. To address endogeneity problems that arise when estimating the effect of the number of lawyers on civil litigation rates, we use two strategies. We first estimate our model by means of the 2SLS procedure. Second, we exploit the instrumental variable approach based on the linear GMM estimator of Arellano and Bond. The estimations result in a positive and significant effect of lawyers that is robust across the different model specifications and estimation methods in which we address endogeneity. In criminal litigation, where lawyers cannot induce demand, we find no such positive relation between lawyers and litigation.     

Θ The cultural transmission of trust norms: Evidence from a lab in the field on a natural experiment

We conduct trust games in three villages in a northeastern Romanian commune. From 1775–1919, these villages were arbitrarily assigned to opposite sides of the Austrian and Ottoman/Russian border despite being located seven kilometers apart. This plausibly exogenous border assignment affected local institutions and late-18th century migration in a manner that likely also affected trust. Conditional on trust norms being affected by these centuries-old historical circumstances, our experimental design tests the degree to which such norms are transmitted intergenerationally. Consistent with theoretical predictions, we find that participants on the Austrian side that also have family roots in the village are indeed more likely to trust outsiders.     

Private law enforcement,fine sharing,and tax collection: Theory and historical evidence

This paper contributes to the literature on private law enforcement by proposing a novel solution to the problem of underenforcement by monopolistic enforcers. Monopolistic enforcers underinvest in enforcement because they ignore the social benefits of deterrence. We show that this problem can be partially resolved by combining law enforcement with tax collection because a joint enforcer-collector will have an interest in reducing the crime rate in order to maximize his tax income. In support of the theory, we discuss two historical examples of this practice: decentralized law enforcement under European feudalism, and centralized law enforcement in the Ottoman Empire.     

以需求为导向的新型农村养老保险参保意愿与模式选择研究

选取陕西省西安市七个非城区县农民为典型调查对象,采用分层整群随机抽样方式,对农村居民养老保险实际需求、参保意愿、模式选择意向作了实态调查。西安市农村家庭收入较低,养老需求日益增长,农村居民开始认同并愿意参加新型农村养老保险,"新农保"制度能够发挥不可替代的养老保障作用。"新农保"模式的选择,在经济条件约束之下,表现为低水平的期望缴费标准和高水平的期望养老金发放水平。提出具有针对性的对策建议,以进一步修正、完善新型农村社会养老保险政策体系。     

湖南省武陵山片区县域流通产业发展的演化特征及影响因素

加速县域流通产业发展是巩固产业脱贫成效、助推乡村振兴的重要途径。基于湖南省武陵山片区37个县(市、区)2001—2019年数据,利用修正的引力模型、探索性空间数据分析(ESDA)和空间计量模型,探索了县域流通产业发展的时空分异特征及其影响因素。研究发现:县域流通产业总体规模扩大但区域发展极不均衡,呈现东南高—西北低的空间格局;流通经济联系度(量)不断上升,"增长极(冷水江)—最弱极(古丈)"特征明显;流通产业具有显著空间集聚特性,局部集聚态势减弱但两极分化明显;劳动力、技术进步、政府扶持和城镇化对县域流通产业发展具有显著正向空间溢出效应,市场需求的促进作用有待提高,产业结构升级和资本对周边县域流通产业发展产生负外溢性。     

专利诉讼的时空选择机理——一个基于动态竞争视角的理论框架

鉴于专利诉讼数量显著增加，并超越单纯的法律案件性质，专利诉讼已成为企业动态竞争中的重要武器，进而成为企业专利战略管理的关键环节。从动态竞争角度看，专利诉讼的时间和地点选择对诉讼结果以及竞争的影响尤为关键。通过总结专利诉讼研究文献和动态竞争理论，从动态竞争视角构建专利诉讼时空选择机理、效应的理论框架模型，有助于进一步开展实证研究，也有助于企业把握专利诉讼的本质，在动态竞争中积累优势。     

On prices’ cyclical behaviour in oligopolistic markets

We revisit the discussion about the relationship between price’s cyclical features, implicit collusion and the demand level in an oligopoly supergame where a positive shock may hit demand and disrupt collusion. The novel feature of our model consists in characterising the post-shock noncooperative price and comparing it against the cartel price played in the last period of the collusive path, to single out the conditions for procyclicality to arise both in the short and in the long-run. This poses an issue in terms of an antitrust agency’s ability to draw well defined conclusions on the firms’ behaviour after the occurrence of the shock, with particular reference for the litigation phase after a cartel breakdown.     

Agglomeration economies and location choice: Foreign direct investment in Hungary1

Since the beginning of the transition process, Hungary has attracted a significant amount of foreign direct investment (FDI), although this is unevenly distributed among the twenty Hungarian counties. This paper examines the determinants of FDI at a regional level in Hungary and more particularly assesses the importance of agglomeration effects among determinants. A panel model of the location determinants of FDI in Hungary is developed and estimated. Empirical testing suggests that counties with higher labour availability, greater industrial demand and higher manufacturing density attract more FDI. Surprisingly, higher unit labour costs attract FDI. In addition, inter‐industrial agglomeration economies and infrastructure availability are found to be important.     

Aggregation and the analysis of markets

The case for aggregating relations in Economics is often tenuous. This paper shows that under conditions of genuine ignorance and real historical time, it is not possible to aggregate from individual demand and supply functions to market-level demand and supply functions. Hence the traditional analysis of markets based on market demand and market supply is called into question. Two proposals for replacing the traditional market analysis are suggested that do not rely on aggregation within markets.     

Foreign trade and early industrialisation in the Habsburg Monarchy and the United Kingdom — Two extremes in comparison

The concept of socio-ecological transitions is used to analyse the quantitative importance of physical imports and exports for the Habsburg Empire and the United Kingdom in the 19th and early 20th centuries. For the Habsburg Empire, a new dataset of foreign trade and social metabolism is presented. For the United Kingdom, the analysis relies on previously published data. Foreign trade volumes increased in both countries in the long run. Total trade volumes were much higher in the United Kingdom throughout the entire time period, on average by around a factor four. Physical factors explaining the disparities in structure and volume of foreign trade in the two countries are differences in (1) the temporal patterns of the socio-ecological transition and (2) domestic resource endowments. In both countries, energy carrying materials, i.e. fossil fuels and biomass, were the dominant resources in physical foreign trade. The analysis focuses on the physically most important material groups: coal, wood and cereals, and discusses the role of imports and exports in relation to domestic resource provision and environmental pressures. Physical foreign trade increased at a faster pace than domestic resource extraction and consumption. The socio-ecological transition was thus accompanied by rising international integration of resource supply.     

《周易》中的讼卦与中国传统讼观念

《周易》与中国法文化有着一定的渊源与联系,讼卦更是研究中国传统讼观念的独特视角。通过讼卦研究讼的产生,讼的影响以及应对讼的方法可以加深对中国传统讼文化的理解。导致诉讼的原因既有客观上的经济因素,也有主观上的心理影响;讼卦认为讼行为总体上是＂终凶＂的,＂不亲＂的;具体而言,讼是无德的表现,讼能够引发社会的纷争,以下犯上之讼是非常严重的错误,但另一方面及时终止诉讼也可能带来吉祥,而讼卦中还体现了非常明显的清官情结。应对讼时,一方面要怀着警惕,谨慎的态度,另一方面则强调君子要积极进行准备以讼对讼的发生。总之,对讼卦的研究可以较为全面地审视我国传统法文化中的讼观念。     

The economic impact of reducing on-base naval housing

This article develops a methodology for estimating the impact on rents and home prices from a hypothetical reduction of on-base naval housing from 56 naval bases in the United States. Based on data from the Center for Naval Analyses and the U.S. Census of Housing, and response coefficients from housing economics literature, illustrative estimates are presented of the short-run and long-run and long-run impact of reducing naval housing.
Key factors determining the increase in rents and home prices include (1) the increase in demand for housing in the private sector resulting from the reduction of on-base naval housing, (2) the short-run and long-run elasticities of supply of private sector housing with respect to housing prices, and (3) the elasticity of demand to live in a defined housing area with respect to housing prices.
We find that the effects on rents and home prices are in most cases small in the short run and negligible in the long run. The median first-year rent increase in the 53 counties is estimated to be 0.90%, with only 9 of the counties still expected to experience rent increases of as much as 4%. In the long run, the median rent increase is estimated to be only 0.10%. Because the purchase of a home is a long-term investment, we find that the impact on home prices is negligible, similar to the long-run impact on rents.     

会计报表重心之变化趋势研究

会计环境的变化导致人们对会计信息的需求发生变化。笔者在追溯会计报表历史演进的基础上,深刻地分析了会计报表重心转移的历史原因,指出在新的环境下会计理论和实务的发展趋势以及我国在新的会计准则中重新确立资产负债表重心地位的必然性。     

An investigation into the demand for alcoholic beverages in Canada: a choice between the almost ideal and the Rotterdam models

In this article I investigate the historical pattern of interactions in the demand for three categories of alcoholic beverages in Canada, using both the differential Almost Ideal and the differential Rotterdam demand systems. I evaluate these models based on several decision criteria including model encompassment (based on the J-test), structural stability, conformity with demand theory and the credibility of the estimated price and income responses, in an attempt to determine which of these models is better suited for explaining the demand for alcoholic beverages. The results reveal that both models satisfy the restrictions of demand theory and of structural stability but the Rotterdam model is preferable on grounds of the remaining two criteria.     

试论保险代位诉讼及其效力体现

保险代位制度作为现代保险法中债的实现方式，为保障被保险人利益创设了新的救济途径。保险代住一般要通过提起代位诉讼的方式实现。保险代住诉讼不同于普通的民事诉讼。法律关系复杂且触及到若干民事诉讼的核心理论问题，如诉权理论、当事人理论等，需从理论上加以廓清。深入探讨保险代位诉讼。对于落实保险代住制度，解决保险实践中的争议，丰富民事诉讼理论均具有重要意义。     

THE IMPACT OF PROVIDER AVAILABILITY ON ABORTION DEMAND

Variations in the availability of abortion providers may impact the demand for abortions since greater provider availability reduces the travel cost associated with acquiring an abortion. This paper applies a fertility-control model to estimate the responsiveness of abortion demand to travel-cost variations using county-level data on the state of Texas. Abortion rates as well as pregnancy rates appear to be sensitive to availability-induced variations in the travel cost of abortion services. In particular, the results suggest that residents in counties with longer travel distances to the nearest abortion provider have lower abortion rates and lower pregnancy rates.     

The emergence of English commercial law: Analysis inspired by the Ottoman experience

Thirteenth-century England was a commercial backwater whose trade was dominated by foreigners. To accommodate and encourage foreign merchants, England modified its legal system by creating legal institutions that were available to both domestic and foreign traders. Among the most important of these institutions were streamlined debt collection procedures and mixed juries composed of both Englishmen and foreigners. By introducing institutions that treated locals and foreigners equally, England created a level playing field that enabled English merchants to become increasingly prominent in the later Middle Ages. England's ability to modernize its law was facilitated by the secular nature of English law, the representation of merchants in Parliament, and legal pluralism. Medieval England contrasts sharply with the early modern Ottoman Empire. The latter created special institutions for foreign merchants, which eventually put Ottoman Muslims at a competitive disadvantage.