The reliability of the registration of births and deaths in Finland in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: Some examples

Abstract

Finland has an abundance of source materials for the study of historical demography. The best-known records are the two sets of tables: the census and mortality tables which were maintained by the parish clergy from 1749 onwards. These recorded the size of the population, to some extent its distribution, and the vital statistics of births, marriages and deaths. The various parish registers formed the basic material for these tables, and information about births and deaths was taken from the registers of births and deaths which exist for Finnish parishes in significant numbers after the Great Northern War (i.e. after 1721). Indeed, for some parishes such registers have survived from as early as the second half of the seventeenth century. Finland therefore has rich documentation available for research into fertility and mortality. However demographic research has previously concentrated upon the more accessible census data, while the registers of births and deaths have been relatively neglected.     

Deal with it! The emergence and reversal of an agro-ecological crisis,Southern Sweden in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

The European Early Modern period provides examples of stagnating and even declining production and energy consumption per capita, which can be interpreted as indicators of an emerging crisis. With a focus on agriculture sector, some have suggested that the crisis was ‘conditional’ – meaning that a crisis can only be observed in some cases. This article investigates one such case, a village in Southern Sweden during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and investigates the mechanisms that mediate population growth to deteriorating living standards and environmental degradation. It provides new insights into the conditions of pre-industrial agriculture, particularly as regards the consequences of intensified demand pressure in ecologically fragile areas, and argues that human societies must be studied in tandem with their natural surroundings.     

The Danish trading companies of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

Abstract

The great trading companies form one of the characteristic features of the economic history of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This is true of Europe generally, and of Denmark in particular. The charter for the first Danish trading company, the East India Company, was issued by king Christian IV on 17 March 1616. And on 21 March 1792, king Christian VII appended his signature to the last company charter, that for the Asiatic Company. The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries thus form a well-defined period with regard to the trading companies as far as Denmark is concerned. There were simply no companies prior to 1600. And when the Asiatic Company was wound up in 1843 after a death struggle which had lasted for more than a generation, the last of the companies vanished. But within this 200-year period there had existed at least twenty Danish trading companies - depending on how trading companies are defined and how their founding and reconstruction are interpreted. At all events the number of them is large by European standards. In fact the concentration of companies in Denmark is even more pronounced, for of the twenty companies, eighteen were founded within a period of only 125 years, between 1656 and 1782. A comparison with the concentration of companies in other European countries during this period is not easy. The literature is diffuse, and the problems of classifying the individual companies as solely or predominantly trading companies are great. But there is scarcely any doubt that Denmark would occupy a high position on any comparative list during this 125-year period — and it is not unlikely that this marginal region of the European economy might come highest on the list.     

Beyond the personal–anonymous divide: agency relations in powers of attorney in France in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

Powers of attorney are often interpreted as evidence of trust among the parties involved. We build a novel dataset of notarized powers of attorney, capturing a wide variety of agency relationships in four large French commercial cities in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, to test hypotheses on the relational basis of economic relationships. We find little support for the idea of a radical shift from personal to anonymous relationships during our period. Our results point to more nuanced transformations. The preference for proxies in the same occupation as the principal somewhat declined, while professional proxies emerged and principals used relational chains, especially involving notaries, to find proxies.     

加强我国公司法人治理结构中的激励与约束机制

本文利用相关分析、Granger因果检验、回归分析三种统计指标分析了CPI与GDP的关系 ,指出CPI作为通货膨胀指标的可行性。要实现CPI的控制目标 ,应以M 2作为货币政策中介目标较为合理     

Transparency in monetary policy

The paper examines different aspects of transparency. Transparency serves democratic accountability by promoting public control. Specifically, the degree of transparency conditions inflation expectations, hence the central bank's scope for stabilization. Recent studies have put doubt on the notion that complete transparency is socially desirable. Here it is pointed out that the conclusion critically depends on an asymmetric modelling of stochastic preferences. The paper also reviews the pros and cons of revealing individual voting. A conclusion is that secrecy is to be prefered in monetary unions in order to shield governors from pressure by home governments. Presidential Address presented at the Fifty-Third International Atlantic Economic Conference, March 13–17, 2002, Paris, France.     

科研开发活动的有偿性与增值税的计征问题——从一个案说起

本文通过案例分析了科研开发中有关费用的性质，指出开发成果不是销售货物，国家在征收增值税时应给予政策上的优惠。     

Uncertainty and monetary policy

The experience of monetary policy making in an uncertain environmenthas encouraged increased attention to the concept of model uncertainty,that is, uncertainty as to which is the best model. A particulardifficulty has been the need to operationalise the concept inorder to yield definitive policy recommendations. If this typeof uncertainty is unquantifiable, then a policy rule determinedby a single model may not in fact be the best approach; pluralismof method and the exercise of judgement offer a potential solution.A rigorous foundation for such an approach is available in Keynes'sphilosophical analysis of decision making under uncertainty.It is concluded that more analytical attention needs to be devotedto agents’ own model uncertainty, and to judgement. Butultimately the scope for synthesis between the model uncertaintyand Keynes uncertainty approaches rests on whether or not thesubject matter is such that knowledge of it is best representedby one formal model.     

分析中国货币政策的有效性

我国货币政策的最终目标是稳定币值,促进经济稳定增长。中央银行是通过货币政策工具控制和调节中介目标———货币供应量来实现这个最终目标的。本文通过探讨货币是中性还是非中性,货币供应量是内生还是外生,我国货币政策的传导机制是否畅通这三个问题,最终得出了我国货币政策