The rise af savings banks in Schleswig

Abstract

This survey of the history of the North Schleswig savings banks is published in connection with the 150th anniversary of the foundation of Senderborg Bys Sparekasse, Thanks to his connection with the province concerned and his earlier academic work.¹ the author is well qualified for a task demanding extensive knowledge and understanding of the special conditions of North Schleswig.     

Export performance and economic growth nexus in Japan: a bootstrap approach

This paper investigates the causal relationship between export growth and economic growth in Japan by performing augmented Granger-causality tests using the bootstrap simulation technique. The estimated results show that the Granger-causality is bi-directional for the period 1960–1999. The established bi-directional causality suggests that the expansion of exports is an integral part of the economic growth process in Japan.     

The savings trap and economic take-off

We develop a model of economic development in which cultureand technology interact to devermine savings, investment, andgrowth. Investment is assumed to involve intermediation or othercosts that may, in any period, result in either of two equilibriafor the savings rate. At the good equilibrium, aggregate savings,the savings rate, and growth are all higher than at the badequilibrium. Whether the country falls into this savings trapdepends on each individual's belief about the savings behaviorof others in the economy. Goverment policies that coordinatesavings and facilitate investment can influence whether thecountry escapes the trap.     

The economic geography of race in the New World: Brazil, 1500–2000†

Race is a fundamental aspect of historical inequality and institutions, yet it is at times overlooked within the literature on comparative development in the Americas. This article investigates the nature of staple production in Brazil and attendant changes in the racial composition of 20 modern states from its discovery by the Portuguese to the present. The Indigenous population was surpassed by that of African descent in the north‐east, south‐east, and north, respectively, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; not until decades after the abolition of slavery did people of European heritage come to constitute a majority. These transitions were guided by the relative productivity, natural increase, and price of Native and African slaves, contingent on the extent of natural resource wealth (mineral deposits or land suitable for growing cash crops) and supply of free labour. In those areas where slavery was most profitable, a 1 per cent increase in the relative cost of Native labour raised the proportion of people of African ancestry by up to 2 per cent, depending on the measures of slave prices and racial classifications considered. This relationship is robust to changes in output prices or the populace of European descent, and alternative scenarios of aboriginal population decline.     

Bank market power, economic growth and financial stability: Evidence from Asian banks

This paper examines whether Asian banks are still prone to moral hazard in the aftermath of the 1997 Asian crisis. Using a sample of commercial banks from 12 Asian countries during the 2001–2007 period, our empirical findings highlight that greater market power in the banking market results in higher instability. Although banks are better capitalized in less competitive markets their default risk remains higher. A deeper investigation however shows that such behaviour is dependent on the economic environment. Higher economic growth contributes to neutralize greater risk taking and higher instability in less competitive markets.     

British relative economic decline revisited: The role of competition

This paper examines the role of competition in British productivity performance over the period from the late-nineteenth to the early twenty-first century. A detailed review of the evidence suggests that the weakness of competition from the 1930s to the 1970s undermined productivity growth but since the 1970s stronger competition has been a key ingredient in ending relative economic decline. The productivity implications of the retreat from competition resulted in large part from interactions with idiosyncratic British institutional structures in terms of corporate governance and industrial relations. This account extends familiar insights from cliometrics both analytically and chronologically.     

Unobserved firm heterogeneity and the size-exports nexus: Evidence from German panel data

This paper starts from the stylized fact that firm size and exporting tends to be positively related. Using large sets of establishment panel data for three different industries from official statistics, evidence is presented that the familiar picture of an export/sales ratio that increases (at a decreasing rate) with firm size vanishes if unobserved firm heterogeneity is controlled for in a fixed-effects fractional logit regression model. This finding is well in line with the fact that many small firms are “hidden export champions.” JEL no. F10, D21, L60     

The growth,poverty and inequality nexus in South Africa: Cointegration and causality analysis

This study empirically established the long-run relationship and causality effects that exist between growth, poverty and inequality. The analysis was carried out on a panel of nine South African provinces from 1995 to 2012. To capture poverty and inequality in a broader context, two measures of poverty (income and non-income) and three measures of inequality (income, education and land) were adopted for the study. The results confirm that there is a long-run relationship between growth, poverty and inequality. Notable results from the causality tests suggest that growth does not promote equal distribution of income in society but as income distribution begins to equalise, economic growth rises. This is regarded as growth–inequality disconnect. The unidirectional causality, which runs from income poverty to income inequality, suggests that a rising level of income poverty will lead to falling income inequality in the society; likewise, income inequality increases as non-income poverty declines.     

Catching up to the European core: Portuguese economic growth, 1910–1990

This paper analyses the causes of Portuguese catching-up to the European core, in the 20th century, within a growth accounting framework. It concludes that investment in human and physical capital was the main driving force of economic growth and that variation in output growth rates are attributable to changes in total factor productivity growth. The paper explains the decline in TFP growth after 1973 in terms of structural change in the industrial sector.     

The long march of history: Farm wages,population, and economic growth,England 1209–18691

The article forms three series for English farm workers from 1209–1869: nominal day wages, the implied marginal product of a day of farm labour, and the purchasing power of a day’s wage in terms of farm workers’ consumption. These series suggest that labour productivity in English agriculture was already high in the middle ages. Furthermore, they fit well with one method of estimating medieval population that suggests a peak English population c.1300 of nearly 6 million. Lastly, they imply that both agricultural technology and the general efficiency of the economy were static from 1250 till 1600. Economic changes were in these years entirely a product of demographic shifts. From 1600 to 1800, technological advance in agriculture provided an alternative source of dynamism in the English economy.     

The gender‐corruption nexus in Asia

This study investigates the relationship between the share of women in parliament and the level of corruption in a panel of Asian countries during the period 1997–2015. This study applies the instrumental variable (IV) fixed effect approach using a system of gender quotas, which are either reserved seats, legal candidate quotas, or voluntary political party quotas as instruments to control for unobserved heterogeneity across countries, and to alleviate endogeneity bias. In addition, the generalised method of moments (GMM) estimator is applied in order to address the persistence of corruption, which causes biased and inefficient estimators in estimation. The main finding is that a higher share of women in parliament is associated with a lower level of corruption, which is consistent with evidence from studies by Dollar et al. (2001) and Swamy et al (2001).     

The role of savings in economic development the U.S. and Japanese experiences

This paper explores the relationship between savings and growth in the United States and in Japan within a simple Granger causality framework. For Japan, growth caused savings before World War II while after World War II savings caused growth. For the US, growth caused savings after World War II. These results suggest that the savings-growth relationship may depend upon the stage of development.     

德国长期经济增长的TFP启示:1875～2013年

文章介绍了德国经济增长数据的历史演变、主要学说以及评估结果。通过使用Hoffmann/Sommariva、Burhop、Ritschl、Maddison、Merkel和德国官方序列,用资本份额法和计量估计法测算了1875~2013年德国全要素生产率(TFP)增长趋势。结论认为,传统资本份额法由于使用了较小的资本产出弹性,可能会高估德国TFP增长。从长期来看,德国TFP增长呈明显的冲击-弱化特征,转折性提升出现在纳粹时期,而1973年后逐渐向一战以前的状态回归。德国经济增长方式转型并非是自然渐进的过程。     

The German inflation and foreign business cycles, 1920–1922

The real fluctuations of the German macroeconomy in the early 1920s differed markedly from those of the other major industrial economies. As the others began a steep depression in 1920, German prices stabilized and the economy grew, led by increased investment in response to the stabilization of the political climate. German income growth increased its trade deficits for about a year and cushioned the onset of the depression abroad. In summer 1921, however, as Germany began paying reparations, inflation restarted and investor confidence ebbed. The German boom strengthened then because exports increased and filled the gap left by lagging investment. As Germany struggled to pay reparations, her export boom worsened the depression of demand in the Allied economies, struggling then to recover from the depression.     

Infant mortality decline in rural and urban Bavaria: fertility,economic transformation,infant care,and inequality in Bavaria and Munich, 1825–1910†

During most of the nineteenth century, Bavaria was notorious for infant mortality rates that were among the highest in Europe. After 1870, infant mortality in Bavaria began a sustained decline. This decline, which was impressive in urban areas, was even more dramatic in Bavaria's capital, Munich. From a peak of 40 deaths per 100 births in the 1860s, infant mortality had fallen two‐thirds by 1914. This article examines the causes of infant mortality in rural and urban districts of Bavaria from 1880 to 1910 and in Munich from 1825 up to shortly before the First World War. In rural Bavaria, structural change in agriculture lowered infant mortality, even as stark differences in infant survival driven by income gaps and deficient infant care remained. In urban areas, high fertility was strongly associated with high infant mortality. Individual‐level data from Munich reveal that infant care, fertility, and incomes mattered. Even prior to industrialization, occupational status influenced infant survival. Munich's growth into a leading industrial centre after 1875 apparently widened the gap between rich and poor. Families at the top of the occupational distribution and couples able to acquire real property saw the steepest declines in infant mortality. The poorest one‐third without property saw little improvement.     

Wealth inequality in Sweden, 1750–1900†

This article examines the evolution of wealth inequality in Sweden from 1750 to 1900, contributing both to the debate on early modern and modern inequality and to the general debate on the pattern of inequality during industrialization. The pre‐industrial period (1750–1850) is for the first time examined for Sweden at the national level. The study uses a random sample of probate inventories from urban and rural areas across the country, adjusted for age and social class. Estimates are provided for the years 1750, 1800, 1850, and 1900. The results show a gradual growth in inequality as early as the mid‐eighteenth century, with the sharpest rise in the late nineteenth century. Whereas the early growth in inequality was connected to changes in the countryside and in agriculture, the later growth was related to industrialization encompassing both compositional effects and strong wealth accumulation among the richest. The level of inequality in Sweden in 1750 was lower than for other western European countries, but by 1900 Sweden was just as unequal.