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作者：Johns Hopkins University
摘要：This article uses a new dataset of 330 slaving voyages to examine terms of credit issued for British American slave sales between 1755 and 1807. It shows that credit terms consistently varied between American colonies, and that slave ship captains considered these differences when electing where to land enslaved Africans. Our dataset also shows that credit terms were highly erratic, especially in the last quarter of the century, contributing to both surges and collapses in the slave trade to i...
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作者：University of Oxford; University of Southern Denmark
摘要：This paper presents two wage-series for unskilled English women workers 1260 1850, one based on daily wages and one on the daily remuneration implied in annual contracts. The series are compared with each other and with evidence for men, informing several debates. Our findings suggest first that women servants did not share the post-Black Death golden age and so offer little support for a girl-powered economic breakthrough and second that during the industrial revolution, women who were unable...
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作者：Yale University
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作者：University of Toronto
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作者：University of California System; University of California Berkeley; European Central Bank; University of California System; University of California Irvine
摘要：This article reconstructs the history of mutual assistance among Federal Reserve Banks. We present data on accommodation operations through which Reserve Banks mutualized gold reserves in emergency situations between 1913 and 1960. Reserve sharing was important in response to liquidity crises and bank runs. Such cooperation was essential for the cohesion of the U.S. monetary union. But fortunes could change, with emergency recipients of gold becoming providers. Because imbalances did not endle...
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作者：University of Michigan System; University of Michigan
摘要：Over time, international trade expanded beyond the reach of an individual's personal networks. How was long-distance trade among strangers financed without using banks? I argue that the joint liability rule enabled the medieval bill of exchange to become a major form of payment and credit in the early modern period which in turn supported an unparalleled expansion of trade. This article empirically examines the role that joint liability played in ameliorating fundamental information problems i...
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作者：Carnegie Mellon University; Carnegie Mellon University
摘要：We revisit the story of technology adoption and diffusion in Japan's Meiji-era cotton spinning industry, the study of which was pioneered by Gary Saxonhouse (1974). Using a novel data set and modern methodology, we argue that both the ease with which the best technology diffused and the role of slavish imitation in this process may have been overstated. We find an important role played by market competition, including asset reallocation. Our analyses provide richer insights into the complex ph...
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作者：Harvard University; Harvard University
摘要：To assess competing theories of democratization, we analyze British sovereign bond market responses to the 1832, 1867, and 1884 Reform Acts, and to two failed Chartist agitations for reform. Analyses of high-frequency 3 percent consol yield data and historical financial press suggest three conclusions. First, democratic reform episodes were preceded by increases in perceived political risk, comparable to democratizing episodes in other countries. Second, both democratic reform and repression w...
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作者：University of Guelph; University of Guelph; Queens University - Canada
摘要：We use newly compiled evidence on inter- and intra-continental shipping costs to investigate the relationship between transportation and trade for trans-Atlantic iron markets from 1870-1913. Although we find a surprisingly weak connection linking ocean freight rates to British exports, after controlling for endogeneity and measuring all costs associated with inter-continental pig iron shipments and the intra-continental assembly of raw materials, the importance of transportation strongly asser...
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作者：William & Mary
摘要：Negative shocks to childhood health can have a lasting impact on the economic success of an individual by altering families' schooling investment decisions. This article introduces a new dataset of brothers serving in World War II and uses it to demonstrate that improvements in childhood health led to substantial increases in educational attainment in the first one-half of the twentieth century. By exploiting variation in health within families, the data show that this relationship between chi...
