Musket War and Musket trade: The New South Wales to New Zealand firearms trade, 1829–1840

The intertribal Musket wars that spread throughout Māori society in the 1820s and 1830s have received much attention from historians. This is also true of the history of trade between New South Wales and New Zealand occurring at the same time. However, at present, the link between these two phenomena remains poorly established. This article draws on the primary material available about the trans-Tasman arms trade from a relatively untapped source, Sydney newspapers, revealing the surprising extent of this commerce and the fact that firearms imports peaked in the early 1830s. This information necessarily requires revision of our understanding of the Musket wars themselves.     

The Market Gardens of Dark Dragon Ridge,New South Wales,Australia, 1876–1930

Long neglected within Eurocentric histories of Australian agriculture, a clearer view of Chinese market gardening in Australia has been emerging over recent decades. As a contribution to this ongoing work, this paper explores Chinese market gardens in Wollongong (known as Dark Dragon Ridge in Chinese), 70 km south of Sydney, between 1876 and 1930. Using a microhistorical framework with an emphasis on business and labour, and guided chiefly by gardeners' own accounts of their activities, I offer new insights into Chinese market gardening. This approach can, I conclude, markedly enhance understanding of this aspect of Australia's past.     

The Danish Agro Machinery Industry in a Global Perspective, 1945–2005

Abstract

Since the mid-nineteenth century, agriculture and the agro machinery industry has formed an integral part of the developed world, dominated by North America and Western Europe. After the Second World War, agricultural industrialization speeded up. Millions of small and mixed farms in the West disappeared to be replaced by large-scale and specialized farming. The technology needed to transform agriculture was supplied by an expanding agro machinery industry. As in other fields of industry, the agro machinery industry turned into an international business. By the turn of the twentieth century, farming and industry took an even bigger step as business and technology were being globalized. The agro machinery industry that served these global markets remained in the West, however. Eventually, transatlantic mergers consolidated firms into industries for plant, dairy and pig and poultry farming equipment. This article discusses how the Danish agro machinery increasingly became an integrated part of international and global developments.     

The growth of patenting in New Zealand, 1860–99

Patent applications by male New Zealand inventors sharply increased in the early 1880s after initial official fees were reduced, and the requirement to advertise applications in newspapers abolished. Increasingly, however, applications lapsed, while applications by unskilled workers remained low. Non-fee costs were crucially important, with the 1870 reduction in fees failing to increase patenting, as hoped, because the doubling of mandatory advertising costs negated the fees reduction. Patenting by overseas inventors was less affected by fees, and steadily grew. Only one application was by an indigenous Māori person, while even in 1899 women made just 2.5% of applications.     

Multidimensional poverty in South Africa in 2001–16

This study uses the Census 2001 and 2011 as well as Community Survey 2007 and 2016 data to derive a multidimensional poverty index in South Africa for each year, before assessing the changes in non-money-metric, multidimensional poverty over time. Both the incidence and intensity of multidimensional poverty decreased continuously, and these declines were more rapid than that of money-metric poverty. The decrease in multidimensional poverty between 2001 and 2016 was most rapid for female Africans residing in rural areas in Eastern Cape and KwaZulu–Natal provinces. Multidimensional poverty was most serious in numerous district councils in these two provinces, despite the fact that poverty decline was also most rapid in these district councils. The results of the multidimensional poverty index decomposition indicated that Africans contributed more than 95% to multidimensional poverty, while unemployment, years of schooling and disability were the three indicators contributing most to poverty.     

The South African labour market, 1995–2015

This study investigates the changes in the South African labour market in the post-apartheid period. While unemployment increased over the 1995–2015 period, employment also increased. Nonetheless, the extent of employment increase is not rapid enough to absorb all net entrants into the labour force, resulting in increasing unemployment, or an employment absorption rate of 65.3%. Unemployment is concentrated in specific demographically and geographically defined groups, most notably Africans, the lowly educated and those aged below 30 years, residing in rural areas in Gauteng. Finally, four worrying findings are observed: youth jobseekers aged below 30 years struggle to find their first job; chronic unemployment is more serious for the relatively older jobseekers (aged 45 years or above) with past work experience; employees working for small, medium and micro enterprises still stagnate at approximately 3.5 million; and jobseekers from the older age cohorts are less likely to actively seek work by enquiring at workplaces and answering job advertisements.     

Examining employment discrimination in South Africa, 1997–2016

This study examines employment discrimination by race and gender in 1997–2016 by employing a sample that represents the labour force (excluding informal sector workers, agricultural workers, domestic workers, self-employed and employers) aged between 15 and 65 years. Probit models are conducted to estimate labour force participation, employment and occupational attainment likelihoods. This is followed by the Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition, and the results indicate that the unexplained component of the white–African employment probability gap reveals a downward trend in absolute terms in 2002–2014, but in relative terms it still accounts for about 50% of the gap in 2016. The unexplained component is most dominant in the male–female employment gap decomposition. While these results suggest that employment discrimination (unexplained component) against Africans and females remains serious, the improvement of education and skills level of the workseekers (explained component) from the previously disadvantaged groups remain crucial to improve their employment prospects.     

Socioeconomic status and judicial disparities in England and Wales, 1870–1910

In a criminal sentencing system based on optimal deterrence, groups will receive different average sentences based on disparities in conviction probabilities, with longer prison sentences balancing more frequent acquittals. A taste-based model makes no such prediction. I compare these models using trial records from England and Wales in 1870, 1883, and 1910, years with extensive jury trials and broad latitude in sentencing for judges. In the earlier years, higher status defendants accused of property crimes receive substantially longer sentences, with no such difference for violent crimes. In contrast, higher status defendants are less likely to be convicted at trial, both when accused of property crimes and of violent crimes. In a Heckman selection empirical model, selection into sentencing has a large effect on the magnitude of these sentencing patterns. For property crimes, there is negative selection on unobservable traits, possibly explained by using imperfect proxies for social class. I conclude that an optimal sentencing and deterrence model is more supported for property crimes than for violent ones, with judges balancing disparate rates of conviction from juries.     

The Way about Fostering Core Competitiveness of Equipment Manufacture Industry in Our Country

Fostering the core competitiveness of equipment manufacture industry is essential to the development of enterprise＇s core competitiveness and the improvement of enterprise＇s whole function. In this process, the fostering way seems especially important. The discussion about the fostering way of the core competitiveness becomes an important component in the process of fostering the core competitiveness of equipment manufacture industry.     

Authoritarian Legacies in Post–New Order Indonesia: Evidence from a New Dataset

Democratisation has fundamentally changed the formal institutional structure of Indonesian politics, but a wealth of contemporary research has demonstrated that the informal mechanisms of power and influence have survived the transition. This article uses a unique, hand-collected dataset of information on Indonesian public figures to empirically catalogue the changes and continuities in Indonesian politics since democratisation. Our results provide quantitative evidence of a substantial shift in Indonesia’s political economy over the last decade and a half: the simultaneous rise of the private sector and decline of the military and the state as avenues to political influence at the national level. Our evidence also suggests that the origins of this shift pre-date democratisation itself.     

‘Learning by importing’ in global value chains: upgrading and South–South strategies in the Ugandan pharmaceutical industry

Drawing on global value chain analysis, this article discusses the possibilities for upgrading in a domestically oriented import-dependent industry. The pharmaceutical industry in Uganda consists of a large number of importers, nine of which have upgraded into assembly and four a step further into manufacturing. The industry upgrades by a process of ‘learning by importing’. Although not engaged with global buyers, pharmaceutical producers in Uganda are tied into the global pharmaceutical value chain by international linkages with their suppliers, mainly in India, from whom they access technology and intermediates for production. Hence, this industry is based on South–South networks for production of low-value pharmaceutical products. With the globalisation of the pharmaceutical industry, an increasing number of global lead firms are ceasing to manufacture these products. This study illustrates an alternative form of industrialisation and upgrading that has not been adequately considered in the development of the African pharmaceutical industry.     

The Impact of Regulation on Utilities’ Investments: A Survey and New Evidence from the Energy Industry

Over the last 30 years, regulated sectors have undergone deep reforms in their institutional configuration, tools and goals. This paper reviews the impact of this evolution on energy firms’ investments. First, we survey the existing evidence on the effects of the presence of independent regulatory agencies on utilities’ investment rates in Europe in the MENA countries, and in Latin America, focussing on the role of de facto independence and the institutional framework. Second, we discuss the impact of incentive- versus rate-of-return regulation on firms’ incentives to invest and the interaction with firm private/public ownership. In this regard, we provide new econometric evidence of the recent developments of regulation, using a sample of European energy utilities tracked from 1997 to 2013. Our results confirm previous findings that investment is higher under incentive regulation than under rate of return regulation. However, differently from the earlier results, we find that investments seem to be driven more by the weighted average cost of capital than by the X-factor. The paper concludes reviewing recent evidence on service quality regulation on firm investment specifically on the impact of reward/penalty schemes on capital and operational expenditures.     

New series for agricultural prices in London, 1770–1914

New annual series for the prices of major agricultural commodities sold in London markets between 1770 and 1914 are presented. These series are based on bimonthly observations drawn from newspaper market reports. The products covered are wheat, barley (grinding and malting), oats, potatoes, hay, butter, beef, mutton, and pork. Annual prices are calculated for both calendar and production years. The new series are compared to existing series.     

The growth of population in Norway 1735–1855

Abstract

The rapid growth of population in many underdeveloped countries during recent years has caused widespread concern. It has, not surprisingly, also helped to focus the attention of demographic historians upon the processes of population growth in western societies, during their pre-industrial and early industrial stages. Scandinavia has occupied a central place in the discussion; chiefly, because here, by a happy accident, the industrial revolution was preceded by an administrative revolution. As a result of this we have an unparalleled set of population statistics dating from the mid- eighteenth century. Sweden, in particular, has become something of a Mecca for demographic historians. Of all the nordic countries her statistics are the most comprehensive and through such studies as those of Swaine Thomas¹ Gille,² Heckscher³ and Utterström,⁴ the most thoroughly explored. Although less well known, the Danish, Norwegian, Finnish and Icelandic material is also of a very high order. Perhaps in the past some of it, in Norway at least, has been accepted too uncritically. Nevertheless, despite the one or two startling errors in the present Norwegian population statistics (they are discussed in the first part of this paper), Norway remains one of the few countries where it is possible to analyse pre-industrial population movements on a statistical basis.     

The Innovating Capacity of Aviation Industry and Industrial Structure Adjustment of the West in China

Equipment manufacturing industry is fundamental in national economy and it is the engine for industrialization. This paper explains the important role that equipment manufacturing industry plays in the industrial structure adjustment of the west and describes that aircraft industry is a hi-tech industry which has the most advantages in the equipment manufacturing industry of the west by facts. Therefore, aviation industry should be the best initiating point to develop equipment manufacturing industry. This paper expounds the argument that strengthening autonomous innovating capacity is the key to rejuvenate the aviation industry of the west. At last, it puts forward the concrete suggestions to raise the autonomous innovating capacity of aviation industry of the west.     

The new goods margin in Japanese–Chinese trade

This paper uses the methodology developed in Kehoe and Ruhl (2013) to measure the change in the extensive, or new goods, margin of trade between Japan and China after China's entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001. The new goods account for 15.9% of Japanese exports to China and 22% of Chinese exports to Japan after trade liberalization. For the case of Chinese exports to Japan, a time series measure shows the growth in new goods coincides with the timing of the trade liberalization.