Changes in food consumption in Iceland, 1770–1940

Abstract

The history of food consumption in Iceland differs in many fundamental ways from that in the rest of Europe. The prominence of domestically produced dairy products, fish, meat and suet, and the insignificance of cereals until the nineteenth century, are among the most unusual features. This paper presents the first attempt to estimate total food consumption in Iceland on the basis of food supply data, covering the period 1770–1940. The data, derived from trade statistics, production statistics and the author’s current study of Iceland’s GNp, provides information on the level of consumption, on the composition and the nutritional value of the diet, and on the changing patterns of consumption. In general terms, this can be described as a transition from an animal-based to a more grain-based diet. A short discussion on the causes of dietary change, and its effects on the nutrional status of Icelanders and on population growth, concludes the paper.     

Decomposing Gender Wage Differentials in Urban Ethiopia: Evidence from Linked Employer–Employee (LEE) Manufacturing Survey Data

Abstract

This study estimates the magnitude of gender wage differentials for a sample of workers from the Ethiopian manufacturing sector using the traditional Oaxaca–Blinder and an augmented Cotton–Neumark methodologies. In doing so, it separates part of the estimated log of gender wage differential explained by differences in human capital characteristics between men and women from that which is not explained by such differences. The latter is known in the literature as “treatment” component or “discrimination” due to differing pay structures for the two gender groups. Accordingly, it is found that in Ethiopia's manufacturing sector men on average get up to 30% more than women depending on the measure used. However, once we control for a number of individual and establishment level characteristics, the level of wage premium for men over women is close to 5% or around 12 Ethiopian cents per hour. Out of this, both decomposition procedures estimate that close to 60% of the premium is a result of discrimination (different treatment of men and women in the labour market). Using an augmented decomposition technique, it is found that out of the 60% “discrimination component” close to 13% is due to men's treatment advantage in the labour market and the remaining 47% is due to women's treatment disadvantage. Also it is found that firm level characteristics are important contributors to the total discrimination component. Without controlling for establishment level characteristics, the discrimination component would have been around 27% indicating that ignoring establishment characteristics in decomposition exercises would result into a biased estimation, and in this case it would have underestimated the level of discrimination by close to 50%.     

Agricultural development in industrialising Japan, 1880–1940

This study reviews research examining agricultural development in industrialising Japan. We focus on the (dys)functioning of markets for land, finance, labour and agricultural commodities. We cover topics including land (mis)allocation, size-productivity relationships, tenancy contract choice and Marshallian inefficiency, property rights, microfinance, shock-coping strategies, rural–urban migration and agricultural market integration. The literature reveals that market failures often observed in developing economies were not prominent, except for possibly labour markets. The literature also highlights the roles and administrative capacities of central and local governments. Tight local communities served to reduce transaction costs.     

Factor substitution and induced innovation in north American kraft pulping: 1914–1940

A Rosenberg/David framework is used to explain induced pulping innovations. Rising spruce prices motivated a switch to a preexisting pulping technique that could theoretically utilize cheap southern pine. In practice, however, specific southern pine characteristics created technical problems, impeding the profitable expansion of kraft pulping. With accumulated experience, technical problems were overcome by minor chemical and mechanical improvements that nonetheless propelled the rise to dominance of kraft pulping. In addition to motivating the switch to the kraft technique, rising spruce prices induced a costly search for kraft-pulping innovations that ultimately saved on the use of more expensive factors.     

The role of migration in regional wage convergence: Evidence from Sweden 1860–1940

Sweden experienced a decline in inter-county real wage differentials for agricultural workers between 1860 and 1940, historical evidence of early labor market integration well before widespread unionization in agriculture occurred. By means of dynamic panel data analysis, this paper examines whether internal and external migrations caused real wage beta convergence across Swedish counties. To account for statistical problems such as endogeneity of migration, time-invariant county characteristics and autocorrelation in the regression model, we adjust our estimates using fixed effects, instrumental variables and GMM. The preferred model shows that both internal and external migrations contributed to wage convergence before the First World War and internal migration mainly during the interwar years. The agglomeration effects of urbanization were not sufficiently pervasive to offset the labor supply effects of internal and external migrations.     

The innovation–trade nexus: Italy in historical perspective (1861–1939)

This work investigates the relationship between trade and technological specialisation in Italy, during the long time span ranging from Unification to the eve of the Second World War. To do this, new series of Italy’s indices of specialisation in trade and technology are calculated based on official data. Empirical analysis, based on Spearman rank correlation coefficients and fixed-effects regression, shows the emergence of a positive relationship between specialisation in technology and specialisation in trade after the start of the country’s modern economic growth, around the turn of the twentieth century. This, however, was uniquely driven by a negative relationship between technological specialisation and import shares, while no significant relationship between the former and export shares emerges. Furthermore, this finding excludes the most important sector, leading Italian industrialisation, that is, textiles, the outstanding performance of which can be seen as largely determined by its being particularly suited to the country’s factor endowment.     

Changes in the demographics of American inventors, 1870–1940

We assemble a novel dataset linking inventors listed in the Annual Reports of the Commissioner of Patents to Population Census records spanning 1870 to 1940. We find that inventors are not a random subset of the population. They differ in some unsurprising ways in that they tend to be older, whiter, and more likely male. However, these patterns do change over time. The odds ratio relative to the population as a whole of female inventors increases from a low of 0.07 in 1880 to a high of 0.13 in 1940 and that of non-whites ranges from 0.16 in 1880 to 0.34 in 1940. Both populations remain severely underrepresented throughout the timeframe. We find changes in the occupations of inventors with trends away from farming and towards white collar occupations. We also show the increasing importance of foreign born people in patenting. In 1870, the odds of a foreign born person patenting relative to the population as a whole is nearly 1 and increases to over 1.6 by 1940.     

Urbanization and mortality in Britain,c. 1800–50

In the long-running debate over standards of living during the industrial revolution, pessimists have identified deteriorating health conditions in towns as undermining the positive effects of rising real incomes on the ‘biological standard of living’. This article reviews long-run historical relationships between urbanization and epidemiological trends in England, and then addresses the specific question: did mortality rise especially in rapidly growing industrial and manufacturing towns in the period c. 1830–50? Using comparative data for British, European, and American cities and selected rural populations, this study finds good evidence for widespread increases in mortality in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. However, this phenomenon was not confined to ‘new’ or industrial towns. Instead, mortality rose in the 1830s especially among young children (aged one to four years) in a wide range of populations and environments. This pattern of heightened mortality extended between c. 1830 and c. 1870, and coincided with a well-established rise and decline in scarlet fever virulence and mortality. The evidence presented here therefore supports claims that mortality worsened for young children in the middle decades of the nineteenth century, but also indicates that this phenomenon was more geographically ubiquitous, less severe, and less chronologically concentrated than previously argued.     

Self-employment in Urban China:Entrepreneurship or Disguised Unemployment?

To explore the mechanism of entry to the self-employed sector in urban China,this study tested two hypotheses:the entrepreneurship hypothesis and the disguised unemployment hypothesis,investigating the impact of mass entrepreneurship and innovation policies on business start-ups.Three main findings emerged.First,the entrepreneurship hypothesis was rejected for both local urban residents and migrants in 2013 but was supported for both groups in 2018.Second,the causality relationship between mass entrepreneurship and innovation policies and business starts-ups was not significant.Third,the results differed by group.The entrepreneurship hypothesis was supported for the younger generation of migrants in 2018 but was clearly rejected for the less educated,both in the local urban resident and migrant groups in 2013 and 2018.Robustness checks confirmed these conclusions.     

Infant Mortality Decline and Its Socioeconomic Correlates in New Zealand, 1873–1940

The popular view of New Zealand during the first half of the twentieth century is one of a healthy country with exceptionally low infant mortality rates. This article reviews the non-Māori ‘health transition’ and its determinants from a socioeconomic perspective and draws comparisons with Australia. Regional health inequalities are analysed through the lens of infant mortality. Socioeconomic correlates with infant mortality are investigated empirically. Panel regression estimates suggest that during the 1874–1919 period, improvements in real wages corresponded with falling infant deaths and thus better health outcomes, while increased housing density created unfavourable conditions for infant survival chances.