Narrow search
Showing 1 - 10 of 1,001
Cover Image
Prodigals and Projecture : An Economic History of Usury Laws in the United States from Colonial Times to 1900
Rockoff, Hugh - 2003
During the Colonial era usury laws in the United States were strict both in terms of the maximum rate that could be … percent, and both principal and interest were forfeited if usury could be proved against the lender. The laws were eased … abandoned its system of usury laws. By 1870, when a limited reaction set in, the liberalization had reached the point where the …
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012468956
Cover Image
The Shape of Twentieth Century Economic History
DeLong, J. Bradford - 2000
The history of the twentieth century can be summarized excessively briefly in five propositions: First, that the history of the twentieth century was overwhelmingly economic history. Second, that the twentieth century saw the material wealth of humankind explode beyond all previous imagining....
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012471206
Cover Image
History as Evolution
Nunn, Nathan - 2020
In this chapter, I consider the benefits of viewing history through an evolutionary lens. In recent decades, a field of research has emerged, which builds on foundations from biological evolution to study culture within an evolutionary framework. I begin the chapter by discussing the theory...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012481254
Cover Image
Historical Macroeconomics and American Macroeconomic History
Calomiris, Charles W. - 1994
What can macroeconomic history offer macroeconomic theorists and macroeconometricians? Macroeconomic history offers more than longer time series or special `controlled experiments.' It suggests an historical definition of the economy, which has implications for macroeconometric methods. The...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012473969
Cover Image
Economic Cycles in Ancient China
Zhang, Yaguang - 2015
We discuss business cycles in ancient China. Data on Ancient China business cycles are sparse and incomplete and so our discussion is qualitative rather than quantitative. Essentially, ancient debates focused on two types of cycles: long run political or dynastic cycles of many decades, and...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012456997
Cover Image
Learning from Ricardo and Thompson : Machinery and Labor in the Early Industrial Revolution, and in the Age of AI
Acemoglu, Daron; Johnson, Simon - National Bureau of Economic Research - 2024
David Ricardo initially believed machinery would help workers but revised his opinion, likely based on the impact of automation in the textile industry. Despite cotton textiles becoming one of the largest sectors in the British economy, real wages for cotton weavers did not rise for decades. As...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10014544695
Cover Image
The Rise of the Engineer : Inventing the Professional Inventor During the Industrial Revolution
Hanlon, W. Walker - National Bureau of Economic Research - 2022
Why was the Industrial Revolution successful at generating sustained growth? Some have argued that there was a fundamental change in the way that new technology was developed during this period, but evidence for this argument remains largely anecdotal. This paper provides direct quantitative...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012938720
Cover Image
Data Gaps and the Policy Response to the Novel Coronavirus
Stock, James H. - 2020
This note lays out the basic Susceptible-Infected-Recovered (SIR) epidemiological model of contagion, with a target audience of economists who want a framework for understanding the effects of social distancing and containment policies on the evolution of contagion and interactions with the...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012482082
Cover Image
Government, Openness and Finance : Past and Present
Demetriades, Panicos O. - 2010
We explore the role of government in the nexus of finance and trade starting from the earliest days of organised finance in England and then broadening the analysis to 84 countries from 1960 to 2004. For 18th century England, we find that the government expenditures and international trade did...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012462195
Cover Image
Does Trade Cause Capital to Flow? Evidence from Historical Rainfalls
Kalemli-Ozcan, Sebnem - 2010
Estimating the effect of trade on capital flows is difficult given the inherent identification problem. We use fluctuations in rainfall to capture the exogenous variation in trade between Germany, France, the U.K., and the Ottoman Empire during 1859-1913. The provisionistic policy of the Ottoman...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012462618