The great divergence and the economics of printing†

While China's invention of printing took place several centuries ahead of Europe's, it was in Europe where the more advanced printing technology of movable type took hold and where book production reached far higher levels. This article explores the extent to which China's complex logographic writing system explains these different outcomes. Using an economic analysis, I show how China's preference for block printing technology over movable type can be justified as the rational choice of commercial producers. In addition to this, model simulations also predict that movable type would be used in China under some specific circumstances which closely match the historical record. On the other hand, the use of block printing would not have led to larger printing costs in China, and as such should not be regarded as the reason behind China's modest level of book production when compared to Europe's.     

The first Sterling Area†

Between the eleventh century and mid‐thirteenth century a Sterling Area evolved in the British Isles, with a common currency based upon the English silver penny and equivalents of it produced in Scotland and Ireland. This Sterling Area began to contract in the second half of the fourteenth century, when reductions in the bullion content of Scottish coins ended the equivalence of the English and Scottish currencies, and in the fifteenth century Ireland developed its own coinage. Estimates of the currency of the Sterling Area are provided, taking the chronology of its growth and contraction into account. Estimates of the sterling currency are not estimates of the currency of England, and they cannot be combined with data relating exclusively to England in economic modelling, without qualification. Per capita currency estimates and values of coin hoards and single coin finds are at a high level around 1400, falling in the second half of the fifteenth century, indicating that the European ‘bullion famine’ of the 1390s to c. 1415 had less effect on the currency than the second late medieval bullion crisis, from the 1430s to the 1460s.     

玉米芯中提取木糖醇的方法

木糖醇属于多元醇 ,分子式为Ｃ5Ｈ12 Ｏ5,白色晶体 ,易溶于水及乙醇中 ,其甜度高于蔗糖。制取木糖醇时 ,主要采用含有多缩戊糖的农业植物纤维废料 ,如玉米芯中含有多缩戊糖 30 %～ 4 0 % ,棉籽壳中含有多缩戊糖 2 5 %～ 30 % ,甘蔗渣中含有多缩戊糖 2 0 %～ 2 5 %。生产一吨木糖醇需要玉米芯 10～ 12吨或棉籽壳 15～ 18吨或甘蔗渣 2 5吨左右。我国木糖醇产量达全世界总需求量的 10 %～ 12 % ,远远不能满足需求。木糖醇易被人体吸收 ,代谢完全 ,不剌激胰岛素的分泌 ,不会使人体血糖急剧升高 ,是糖尿病人理想的甜味剂和具有营养价值的一种甜味…     

House prices in the Ottoman Empire: evidence from eighteenth‐century Edirne†

This study uses a new dataset of 2,246 notarial deeds of house sales from one of the major cities of the Ottoman Empire, Edirne, covering the period from 1720 to 1814. It estimates real hedonic house prices and urban wealth inequality for the housing market. It shows that house size, proximity to the commercial centre, access to fresh water, and family ties were important determinants of relative house prices. These findings also apply to the different quartiles of the market, indicating limited market segmentation. It demonstrates that there was an increase in housing wealth inequality during the eighteenth century as house prices became more dispersed. The hedonic house price index provides evidence that inflation‐adjusted house prices declined substantially following the Russo‐Turkish war of 1768–74. The decline is mainly explained through demographic shocks induced by plague epidemics, natural disasters, and other population movements driven by wars, army mobilization, and political upheavals.     

行为经济学视角的资源过度消费研究

资源过度消费是一个严重的现实问题,论文从行为经济学的视角对资源的过度消费行为进行了相关分析,认为人的意志力与自我控制力的有限性、互惠意识的缺乏、上瘾性行为和投射偏误导致了资源过度消费行为的产生,并提出了建立引导资源消费行为的前置激励机制、完善资源理性消费服务机制、积极鼓励互惠行为等策略来抑制资源过度消费。     

从福建大米进口贸易的消长看地缘经济优势

近代福建大米进口以甲午战争为界分为前后两个时期,前期进口量相对较小,后期则大大增长。大米进口主要仰赖地缘相近的东南亚各产米区源源不断的供给；同时,台湾割让后,从福建传统的“谷仓”转变为洋米进口的主要供给地之一,从福建大米进口贸易可以看出发展地缘经济的优势地位。     

Price‐Setting Behavior of Korean Firms†

This paper investigates a pattern of price revision by firms in Korea and sheds light on the cause of price stickiness by providing reliable statistical estimates for calibration of the parameters of the widely‐used macro‐models. Based on firm‐level survey data and using a probit model, we identify the firm characteristics or market conditions that discourage firms from carrying out state‐dependent price adjustment. We also estimate the factors driving firms to engage in state‐dependent adjustment rather than wait until the next scheduled revision under three different shocks: demand, general cost and exchange rate shocks. We find a few interesting features, as follows. First, price revision by Korean firms tends to be time‐dependent rather than state‐dependent, with a sizable dispersion across sectors and firm sizes. Second, the pattern of price revision in Korea is not significantly different from that in selected advanced economies. Third, the reason why firms favor time‐dependent price adjustments appears to be endogenous, accounted for by a number of market institution variables. Fourth, in response to shocks, Korean firms tend to wait until the next periodically scheduled revision rather than make a state‐dependent price adjustment, unless marginal costs are affected significantly by the shock, and state‐dependent revisions are often significantly delayed when they do occur.     

对我国隐私权保护的经济学思考

我国隐私权的法律保护现状 隐私权之于现代中国是一个尴尬的问题：一方面是现实生活中侵犯隐私权越来越成为非常频繁的侵权事件，有关诉讼与日俱增；另一方面是立法上的严重缺陷和司法的无所适从。在我国的现行法律中，并没有“隐私权”一词，公民隐私主要是通过间接、分散的立法方式来保护的。比如宪法规定，公民的住宅不受侵犯，禁止非法搜查或者非法侵入公民的住宅。     

由“柠檬市场”诞生的现代信息经济学

在现实的经济环境中,对于个别行为者而言,他所掌握的与某一交易行为和交易结果有关的信息都可分为两个部分:一部分是所有行为者或当事人双方都了解的信息,我们称之为公共信息;另一部分则是只有某个行为者自己知道,其它行为者或对方当事人所不了解的信息,我们称之为私人信息。例     

A dismal science; An essay on new classical economics

Summary Does new classical economics constitute a scientific achievement? Are its basic concepts demonstrably appropriate representations of fundamental characteristics of economic reality? An inspection of the relevant models shows that this is not the case. There exists hardly any empirical evidence which can be interpreted as foundational for the concepts employed in new classical microeconomics. It is more accurate to view the latter as mathematically convenient constructions which yield desired results - which often means: results that seem to be relevant for policy making. Finally, the new classical approach to macroeconomics appears to originate in substantial confusions about the nature of this subject.I am grateful to Pieter Stobbe for long and frequent discussions about economic theory which have helped to shape the views I put forward in this article. I should also like to thank Jan Marc Berk who provided research assistance. I alone am responsible for what follows.     

Direct finance in the Dutch Golden Age†

This article analyses private credit operations in Amsterdam in the seventeenth century to explain the absence of deposit banks. The financial system was highly segmented and a combination of declining business margins and narrow interest rate spreads cut the scope for deposit taking. Moreover, merchants had easy access to credit in the form of short‐term loans which could be easily rolled over, or replaced at will. This technique worked well because a market developed providing key functions to control risk and price loans accordingly.     

Fiscal Sustainability of Local Governments in Japan†

The total amount of Japan's local government (LG) expenditures exceeds its central government (CG) expenditures. Japan's LG and CG are responsible for the worst general government's debt situation among the G7 countries. The paper elucidated the fiscal reactions of Japan's prefecture governments (PGs) based on Bohn's (1998a, 2005) method with a panel dataset (44PGs, fiscal years 1974–2016), addressing nonstationary and endogeneity issues. In my model, a positive reaction of the primary surplus/gross regional product (GRP) ratio to the PG debt/GRP ratio (d) constitutes a sufficient condition for sustainability. The results of the study demonstrate the following: (i) the PG in any fiscal condition are assumed to provide sustainable fiscal management; (ii) the PGs in sounder or more dire fiscal conditions probably manage their finances more firmly; (iii) the fiscal transfers from the CG generally ease the PG fiscal conditions; (iv) although primary regressors d and dsq (the square of d) are assumed to be I (1) with some accuracy, they become stationary through cointegration with other regressors.     

What has orthodox development economics learned from recent experience?

Orthodox development economics has advocated the view that the challenge of development lies in the initiation of take-off. Once initiated, however, an array of mechanisms could be counted on to maintain development and to assure that it would trickle and spread into various pockets of poverty internationally as well as within countries. From the vantage point of the orthodox approach the recent experience of developing countries with rapid growth but growing unemployment and income inequality comes, therefore, as a surprise. This paper suggests that this experience squares more satisfactorily with an alternative disequilibrium interpretation of the development process. Some building blocks of a new paradigm that would emphasize disequilibrium processes are specified and illustrated with respect to the contemporary landscape of developing countries. The policy and other implications of the alternative disequilibrium and orthodox paradigms are contrasted.     

Interpreting business partnerships in late Victorian Britain†

This article gives the first large‐scale assessment of business partnerships in England and Wales using business records within the population census for 1881. It seeks to understand the variety of ways that ‘partnership’ was used: explicit partnership, ‘de facto’ partnership, ‘joint’ activity, and asset ownership together. The article confirms that partnerships were chiefly between two people. Complexity and transaction costs largely precluded larger size and squeezed the partnership into a ‘middle ground’ between the sole proprietor and the corporation. The main size contrast was between farms with small employee numbers, and larger non‐farm business partnerships. Generally differences in the gender of business owners have greater salience than sectors. Few female business partnerships employed more than four people (mean 3.4), while male partnerships ranged up to several thousand employees (mean 33.6), and 18.6 for mixed gender. While many women were involved in businesses, their opportunities remained restricted, and most were in partnership with male partners. Family structures were important, with three‐quarters of all identifiable partnerships having some form of family relationship, with a strong preponderance of single women in female‐only partnerships, married men in male‐only partnerships, and widows in mixed gender businesses.     

How the German crisis of 1931 swept across Europe: a comparative view from Stockholm†

According to conventional wisdom, the fall of the Swedish currency in September 1931 was caused by the sterling crisis. This article shows that the road towards devaluation began earlier and that financial linkages with Germany proved to be more important than Sweden's economic and monetary relations with Great Britain. It all started in late 1929 when the Swedish financier Ivar Kreuger gave a loan to the German government in exchange for the match monopoly, thus tying his business ventures to Germany's solvency. In addition, a part of this loan was financed by large US dollar credits from the two largest Swedish banks that, in turn, accumulated a sizeable foreign short‐term deficit. When in June 1931 the German fiscal crisis began to escalate, international investors ceased to consider Sweden a safe haven because they knew about the linkages between the German government, Kreuger, and the Swedish banking system. This downgrading, in combination with the foreign short‐term deficit of the banking sector, proved lethal for the reserve position of the Swedish central bank, once the international liquidity crisis in mid‐July 1931 erupted. The sterling crisis only put the final nail in the coffin.