Surprisingly gentle confinement: British treatment of Danish and Norwegian prisoners of war during the napoleonic wars

ABSTRACT

The Napoleonic Wars saw the British capture and incarcerate thousands of sailors in disused Royal Navy ships, the so-called prison hulks. Many Danes and Norwegians – navy personnel, privateers and merchant sailors – were thus interred. This article uses a new data source, the official record books kept in the National Archive at Kew, to test whether the prison hulks were as bad as popular perception might suggest. In doing so, we provide the first rigorous quantitative assessment of the Danish and Norwegian sailors’ prisoner experience. We find that death rates were surprisingly low, suggesting the quantity and quality of food and medical care was reasonable. Prison hulks were not ‘floating tombs’. The records also show which prisoners were released and exchanged, and when. Officers did well, reflecting the age old system of a gentleman’s honour. Privateers did worse than merchant sailors: those who took up arms were likely to serve longer as prisoners.     

An artificial intelligence approach to the role of exports in the economic development of Malaysia

Over the past three decades, Malaysia has shown impressive economic growth, placing this country in a group of fast-growing Southeast Asian economies and among the top performing economies in the world. This achievement has been consciously undertaken through export expansion strategies and by attracting foreign investments. Using an artificial intelligence approach and data from 1966 to 1994, the purpose of this study is to investigate the role of exports in the economic growth and development of Malaysia. The results of this new methodology confirm the earlier findings that exports strongly contributed to the economic growth and development of Malaysia. The results of the model simulation for the in-sample and out-of-sample data show that the model's forecast is better than of the regression approach.     

Guangdong: A catalyst for economic growth and exports in hunan province

This paper uses the concept of Granger-causality to analyze the link between export expansion in the rapidly growing Guangdong province and GDP growth and exports in Hunan, its adjacent northwest neighbor province. Data cover the 1978 to 2001 period. A long-run equilibrium relationship is found between the variables and a long-run positive causality is detected from export expansion in Guangdong to both GDP growth and exports in Hunan. Hence, the results seem to support the unbalanced regional development policy implemented by the central government in the late 1970s and early 1980s.     

苏州、温州经济增长模式中政府作用的对比与反思

以民营经济为特色的温州模式和以苏州乡镇企业经济为代表的苏南模式曾经是我国经济增长模式的两个典型。然而随着时代的发展，温州模式遭遇增长瓶颈，从苏南模式蜕变成的以利用外资为特色的新苏州模式目前发展势头良好，两者经济增长速度出现了较大的差距，尽管原因是多方面的，但政府在经济增长中的不同定位，应是主要原因之一。     

The structure of transport costs on Latin American exports

Zusammenfassung Die Struktur der Transportkosten für lateinamerikanische Exporte. — In dieser Studie wird die Struktur der Transportkosten für die Exporte aus acht lateinamerikanischen L?ndern untersucht. Die theoretische Spezifizierung der Transportkostenfunktion umfaβt die wichtigsten Merkmale der Transportwege und der Güter, die in die Nachfrage- und die Kostenseite der Transportpreise eingehen, wie Wert pro Stück, Entfernung, Volumen der Ware und Indikatoren für Skalenertr?ge beim Schiffstransport. Ein derartiges Modell wird mit disaggregierten Daten gesch?tzt für die Seetransportpreise von Exporten aus Argentinien, Brasilien, Chile, Kolumbien, Mexiko, Peru, Uruguay und Venezuela. Die Ergebnisse deuten darauf hin, daβ die wichtigeren empirischen Variablen einen groβen Teil der Variation in den Transportkosten erkl?ren. Allerdings unterscheidet sich das Gewicht der Charakteristika von Transportwegen und Gütern von Land zu Land erheblich. Praktisch k?nnten Funktionen dieses Typs benutzt werden, um Transportkosten zu veranschlagen, die h?ufig nicht statistisch erfaβt werden. Im Falle Lateinamerikas und anderer weniger entwickelter L?nder sind solche Berechnungen besonders wichtig, weil sie es gestatten, die cif-Preise zu sch?tzen, zu denen Güter auf den Exportm?rkten angeboten werden k?nnen. Als ein Nebenprodukt wird in dieser Studie auch die Frachtratendiskriminierung durch Schiffahrtskonferenzen untersucht. Im allgemeinen gibt es wenig Hinweise darauf, daβ von den Konferenzen m?gliche Monopolgewinne voll ausgesch?pft werden. Das kann durch Umfang und Art der lateinamerikanischen Exporte erkl?rt werden und auch durch das Vorhandensein eines ?Wettbewerbsrestes? in Form von alternativem Transportangebot durch Tramp- und Charterschiffahrt.

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Résumé La structure des frais de transport sur les exportations latino-américaines. — Cette étude examine la structure des frais de transport sur les exportations des huit pays latino-américains. La spécification théorique de la fonction de frais de transport inclut les caractéristiques majeures routières et des biens qui influent les cótes de demande et d’offre des frais de transport, comme la valeur unitaire, la distance d’embarquement, les biens encombrants, et les indicateurs des économies d’échelle en embarquement. Nous estimons un tel modèle avec les données disagrégées sur les frais de transport d’océan des exportations de l’Argentine, du Brésil, du Chili, de la Colombie, du Mexique, du Pérou, d’Uruguay et du Venezuela. Les résultats indiquent que les variables empiriques majeures expliquent un grand pourcentage des variations en frais de transport. Cependant les effets des caractéristiques routières et des biens varient considérablement parmi les pays individuels. Comme application, on peut utiliser les fonctions de frais de transport de cette manière pour projeter les frais de transport fréquentement pas observés. En cas de l’Amérique latine et des autre pays en voie de développement tels calculs sont particulièrement importants, parce qu’ils permettent des estimations des prix à la livraison (caf) pour lesquels on peut faire les biens disponibles sur les marchés d’exportation. Comme sous-produit, l’étude aussi examine le fait de discrimination en déterminant les tarifs de fret par les conférences des lignes d’océan. Généralement, il y a peu d’évidence de l’exploitation totale des profits monopolistiques par des conférences des lignes, c’est qui est expliqué par le volume et compositions des biens des exportations de l’Amérique latine et par la présence d’une ?pression de concurrence? de manière des services d’embarquement alternatifs comme des tramps et des charte-parties.

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Resumen La estructura de los costos de transporte sobre las exportaciones latinoamericanas. — Este estudio examina la estructura de costos de transporte sobre las exportaciones de ocho países latinoamericanos. La especificación teórjca de la función de costos de transporte incluye la ruta más importante y las caracterfsticas de los productos que entran en los aspectos de demanda y de costos para los cargos de transporte, tales como los valores unitarios, distancia de embarque, volumen del producto e indicadores de economías de escala en el embarque. Un modelo tal se estima con datos desagregados de cargos de transporte marítimo sobre las exportaciones de Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Colombia, México, Perú, Uruguay y Venezuela. Los resultados indican que las variables empíricas más importantes explican una gran proporción de la variación en los costos de transporte. Sin embargo, el impacto de la ruta y de las características de los productos varía considerablemente entre países individuales. Como aplicación, las funciones de costos de transporte de este tipo pueden ser utilizadas para proyectar costos de transporte que frecuentemente no se observan. En el caso de Latinoamérica y de otros países en desarrollo calculaciones de este tipo son especialmente importantes, ya que permiten estimaciones de los precios (cif) de entrega a los cuales los bienes pueden ofrecerse en meracados de exportaciones. Como coproducto el estudio también examina el asunto de la discriminatión de tarifas de las conferencias de lineas oceánicas. En general, existe poca evidencia de la completa explotación de ganancias monopólicas por las conferencias de lineas, lo que se explica por el volúmen y la composición de productos de las exportaciones latinoamericanas y la presencia de un ?márgen competitivo? en la forma de servicios de embarque alternativos como los ?charters? y los ?tramps?.

     

Trade policies,macroeconomic adjustment,and manufactured exports: The Latin American experience

Conclusions Changes in trade policy, especially in quantitative import restrictions, have played an important role in the macroeconomic adjustment in all six countries. For long periods, trade policy tightenings and occasional liberalizations were the main instruments of balance-of-payments policy. Most tightenings were preceded by a deterioration in the current account. In several cases tight import restrictions had adverse effects on output and, hence, on investment and growth. Since changes in trade policies, referred to here as episodes, were usually part of a policy package, it is difficult to isolate the effects of the episodes themselves. Sometimes they have been followed by current account improvements and other times by deteriorations.     

Re-examining foreign direct investment,exports, and economic growth in asian economies using a bootstrap ARDL test for cointegration

This paper examines whether there is a long-run relationship among foreign direct investment (FDI), exports, and gross domestic product (GDP) in selected Asian economies. We use a newly developed cointegration test, the bootstrap autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL), to examine this long-run relationship. The motivation for using the bootstrap methodology is to generate and apply critical values for the ARDL test that are valid and appropriate for the specific data sets used. Further, the bootstrap tests allow for endogeneity and feedback that may exist. Pesaran et al. (2001) highlighted the possibility of degenerate cases, but empirical studies in general ignore these and may conclude that cointegration exists when it does not. Our tests fail to find evidence of cointegration when GDP is the dependent variable. The absence of a long-run forcing relation from FDI and exports to GDP implies that FDI and exports were not the sole sources of economic growth in our selected Asian economies.     

The role of services for manufacturing firm exports

Manufacturing firms have been increasingly focusing on services, a trend that is evident in their composition of bought-in input and in-house production. The services intensity of firms may affect their productivity and thereby their competitiveness abroad; services are also instrumental in connecting firms to foreign markets and can help them to differentiate their offerings from those of other firms. However, the relation between services and manufacturing exports has only been partially analysed in the previous literature. This study contributes to the field by discussing the role of services for firms and empirically testing a set of related conjectures. Export intensity is regressed on two services input parameters, applying a fractional model to a rich panel of firms in Sweden in the period 2001–2007. The microeconometric results suggest that, after controlling for covariates and heterogeneity, service inputs affect a firms’ export capabilities: raising the proportion of services in in-house production yields higher export intensity on average. Furthermore, buying-in more services is associated with higher export intensity for firms in some industries. Overall, the study provides new firm-level evidence of the role of services as inputs in manufacturing.     

The growth of exports and manufacturing in South Africa from 1947 to 1987

This paper establishes the direction of causality between export growth and manufacturing output growth in the period 1947 to 1987. Total exports and manufacturing output demonstrated bidirectional causality for the entire period, yet from 1947 to 1970 there was found to be no relationship between them. A test for the direction of causality between merchandise exports and manufacturing output found that causation ran from manufacturing output to exports from 1947 to 1970. In the period 1968 to 1987, bidirectional causation was established between merchandise exports and manufacturing output     

The role of foreign direct investment in Indonesia's manufacturing exports

This article examines whether foreign direct investment (FDI) has contributed to the changing structure of Indonesia's manufacturing exports. It uses industry-level data from 1990 to 2008, classified by factor intensity. Our analysis reveals that FDI promotes exports in most panel observations, especially exports from physical-capital-intensive (PCI), human-capital-intensive (HCI) and technology-intensive (TI) industries. Yet by applying a differentiated cross-section-effect model, we determine that the export-generating potential of FDI is stronger in PCI, HCI and TI industries than in natural-resource-intensive or unskilled-labour-intensive industries, in which Indonesia has a comparative advantage. We also assess the influence of other determinants of export performance – namely, private domestic capital investment, GDP growth and exchange rates. Our findings have implications for policymakers seeking to sustain Indonesia's export performance.     

The role of creative innovation in economic growth: Some international comparisons

For many countries, export-driven policies have thus far produced dramatic increases in real per capita income. At the same time, sustainable growth requires that technological innovation proceed at comparable rates if mutual gains from globalization are to be realized. In this paper, we derive a measure of innovation and test the extent to which institutional policy choices enhance or delay its diffusion. To do so we use a panel regression model, with data on a sample of 103 countries in different geographic regions for the 1980–2005 period. Our findings provide empirical evidence of the positive role of creative innovation in economic growth, and from which we derive several basic policy conclusions.     

Debt and development: The role of foreign capital in economic growth

Capital flows, whether between individuals or nations, are dominated by a two- fold paradox. Borrowers are initially primarily interested in obtaining sufficient funds for their needs, but once they have obtained a loan, their indebtedness becomes their principal concern. While a loan is being negotiated the lenders usually have the upper hand, but once it is made, they become dependent on the borrowers for repayment with interest. Their power to withhold future loans becomes their only real measure of control. Borrowing and lending has costs and benefits, and these balance out only in exceptional cases for both the borrowing and lending countries and the principal social groups within them. The debate about the impact of international capital flows accordingly has a long history. This paper begins with a historical perspective, and then reviews the principal characteristics of capital flows to developing countries since the 1950s. A discussion of the impact of capital flows on development, with a particular emphasis on trends in developing country indebtedness, follows. A brief examination of borrowing and debt management issues for borrowers, lenders and the international community concludes the paper.     

Promoting exports: the role of inward FDI in China

Since the late 1970s, exports and inward foreign direct investment (FDI) in China have risen dramatically under the open-door policy. The critical role of FDI in China's exports may be indicated by the fact that exports by foreign affiliates in China in 1998 were US$81 billion, comprising 44% of China's total exports in that year. While there is considerable evidence on the FDI export linkage in China, systematically empirical analyses have been limited. This paper investigates the issue using panel data at the provincial level in the period of 1986–1997. The findings support the widely held belief that increased levels of FDI positively affect provincial manufacturing export performance.     

The effect of exchange rates on firm exports and the role of FDI

This paper studies how exchange rate movements affect the export market entry and intensity decision of firms and the export behaviour of multinationals in the UK. Using data on British manufacturing firms we find that exchange rate movements have little effect on firm export participation but have a significant impact on export shares. Multinationals have at their disposal a greater array of instruments to deal with exchange rates changes, although their use may vary according to the motives behind FDI. We also find important differences according to the country of origin of multinational firms. Multinationals firms originating from outside of the EU are less affected by changes in the exchange rate compared to those inside, who appear similarly affected as domestic firms.