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作者：Vanderbilt University; National Bureau of Economic Research; Boston University; University of Michigan System; University of Michigan
摘要：During the nineteenth century, U.S. manufacturers shifted away from the hand labor mode of production, characteristic of artisan shops, to machine labor, which was increasingly concentrated in steam-powered factories. This transition fundamentally changed production tasks, jobs, and job requirements. This paper uses digitized data on these two production modes from an 1899 U.S. Commissioner of Labor report to estimate the frequency and impact of the use of inanimate power on production operati...
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作者：Peking University; University of Hong Kong; Peking University
摘要：This paper investigates the impact of the abolition of the civil service exam on local governance in early twentieth-century China. Before the abolition, local elites collected surtaxes that financed local public goods, but they were supervised by the state and could lose candidacy for higher status if they engaged in corrupt behavior. This prospect of upward mobility (POUM) gave them incentives to behave well, which the abolition of the exam removed. Using anti-elite protests as a proxy for t...
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作者：University of Warwick; Zhejiang University
摘要：How did the 1918 influenza pandemic affect female labor force participation in India over the short run and the medium run? We use an event-study approach at the district level and four waves of decadal census data in order to answer this question. We find that districts most adversely affected by influenza mortality saw a temporary increase in female labor force participation in 1921, an increase that was concentrated in the service sector. We find suggestive evidence that distress labor supp...
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作者：Baylor University
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作者：University of York - UK
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作者：University of Oxford; University of Oxford; University of Oxford; University of Oxford; University of Oxford
摘要：U.S. military production during World War II increased at an impressive rate and led to large declines in unit costs. However, the literature has focused on elucidating detailed mechanisms behind this relationship, using small datasets on specific products. Here we take a step back and, looking at an unprecedently large collection of data, we show that both exogenous technological progress and endogenous effects from increasing production experience were important, in roughly similar proportio...
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作者：University College Dublin
摘要：Disputes over whether the Scientific Revolution contributed to the Industrial Revolution begin with the common assumption that natural philosophers and artisans formed distinct groups. In reality, these groups merged together through a diverse group of applied mathematics teachers, textbook writers, and instrument makers catering to a market ranging from navigators and surveyors to bookkeepers. Besides its direct economic contribution in diffusing useful numerical skills, this practical mathem...
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作者：Columbia University; Utah System of Higher Education; Utah State University
摘要：We study the decisions of state-chartered banks to join the Fed in its first decade. Ours is the first study to combine state regulatory environment characteristics and individual bank characteristics to explain Fed membership choice. Regulatory environments that reduced the benefit of discount window access or increased the regulatory cost of joining the Fed led to fewer banks joining. Individual bank characteristics that affected the magnitude of benefits from accessing the discount window (...
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作者：National Taiwan University; Feng Chia University; National Taiwan University
摘要：This research examines whether an alternative exchange rate policy could have mitigated Germany's recession from April 1930 to May 1932, when Heinrich Bruning was Reichskanzler of the Weimar Republic. Using an open-economy dynamic model as our analytical framework, we examine the arguments against adopting the devaluation policy. Our counterfactual analysis suggests that a widely held belief-that floating the Reichsmark would have led to high inflation-is unwarranted. Despite Germany's high fo...
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作者：Universite Paris-VIII; Paris School of Economics; University of York - UK
摘要：The Classical Gold Standard period, with high capital mobility and fixed-exchange rates, is usually seen as the extreme case of international constraints on monetary policy. Contrary to this view, we show how central bank balance sheets offset the effects of international shocks on domestic interest rates. In contrast, in the United States, a gold standard country without a central bank, the reaction of money market rates was two to four times stronger than that of interest rates in countries ...
