Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation

Performances have only recently been addressed in business history research, partly because of problems concerning data quality and availability. As a consequence, performance measurement in family firms has been a neglected area in historical studies. Family business historians are thus increasingly interested in this topic. However, the longitudinal perspective adopted requires a problematical approach to the concept of performance. This article provides a critical assessment of the relationship between family firms and performance measurement from the perspective of business history and, at the same time, suggests the potential contribution of historical analysis to theory building in this field.

Contextualizing Performances of Family Firms The Perspective of Business History

We review two important schools within business and society research, which we label positivist and post-positivist corporate social responsibility (CSR). The former is criticized because of its instrumentalism and normative vacuity, and the latter because of its relativism, foundationalism, and utopianism. We propose a new approach, based on J?rgen Habermas's theory of democracy, and define the new role of the business firm as a political actor in a globalizing society.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID1339868_code721161.pdf?abstractid=952013&mirid=1

Toward a Political Conception of Corporate Responsibility - Business and Society Seen from a Habermasian Perspective

he world's central bankers and their staffs meet regularly, in venues from Basle to Washington, to share ideas and discuss common problems. Perhaps these frequent meetings help explain why changes in the tactics and strategy of monetary policymaking-such as the adoption of money growth targets in the 1970s, the intensification of efforts to reduce inflation in the 1980s, and the recent push for increased institutional independence for central banks-tend to occur in many countries more or less simultaneously. Whatever their source, major changes in the theory and practice of central banking are of great importance, for both individual countries and the international economy. In this article, we discuss a new strategy for monetary policy known as "inflation targeting," which has sparked much interest and debate among central bankers and monetary economists in recent years. This approach is characterized, as the name suggests, by the announcement of official target ranges for the inflation rate at one or more horizons, and by explicit acknowledgment that low and stable inflation is the overriding goal of monetary policy. Other important features of inflation targeting include increased communication with the public about the plans and objectives of the monetary policymakers, and, in many cases, increased accountability of the central bank

/pdf/inflation-targeting-a-new-framework-for-monetary-policy-xtik138r8m.pdf

Inflation Targeting: A New Framework for Monetary Policy?

Financial crises Lessons from the last 120 years

The crisis problem is one of the dominant macroeconomic features of our age. Its prominence suggests questions like the following: Are crises growing more frequent? Are they becoming more disruptive? Are economies taking longer to recover? These are fundamentally historical questions, which can be answered only by comparing the present with the past. To this end, this paper develops and analyses a data base spanning 120 years of financial history. We find that crisis frequency since 1973 has been double that of the Bretton Woods and classical gold standard periods and is rivalled only by the crisis‐ridden 1920s and 1930s. History thus confirms that there is something different and disturbing about our age. However, there is little evidence that crises have grown longer or output losses have become larger. Crises may have grown more frequent, in other words, but they have not obviously grown more severe. Our explanation for the growing frequency and chronic costs of crises focuses on the combination of capital mobility and the financial safety net, including the implicit insurance against exchange risk provided by an ex ante credible policy of pegging the exchange rate, which encourages banks and corporations to accumulate excessive foreign currency exposures. We also provide policy recommendations for restoring stability and growth.

— Michael Bordo, Barry Eichengreen, Daniela Klingebiel and Maria Soledad Martinez‐Peria

/pdf/is-the-crisis-problem-growing-more-severe-52qyneo06w.pdf

Is the crisis problem growing more severe

"Globalization" is here. Signified by an increasingly close economic interconnection that has led to profound political and social change around the world, the process seems irreversible. In this book, however, Harold James provides a sobering historical perspective, exploring the circumstances in which the globally integrated world of an earlier era broke down under the pressure of unexpected events. James examines one of the great historical nightmares of the 20th century: the collapse of globalism in the Great Depression. Analyzing this collapse in terms of three main components of global economics - capital flows, trade, and international migration - James argues that it was not simply a consequence of the strains of World War I, but resulted from the interplay of resentments against all these elements of mobility, as well as from the policies and institutions designed to assuage the threats of globalism. Could it happen again? There are significant parallels today: highly integrated systems are inherently vulnerable to collapse, and world financial markets are vulnerable and unstable. While James does not foresee another Great Depression, his book provides a cautionary tale in which institutions meant to save the world from the consequences of globalization ended by destroying both prosperity and peace.

The End of Globalization: Lessons from the Great Depression

International Monetary Cooperation since Bretton Woods

This book is a reassessment of the international monetary crises of the post-World War I period that led to the Great Depression of the 1930s. It also analyses the responses of the world economic powers to the Depression and how new monetary policies set the stage for the watershed post-World War II system established at Bretton Woods. It offers new theories of what effect the Great Depression had on the collapse of the world monetary system, and what effect the collapse had on deepening and prolonging the Depression, by exploring the link between global economic crisis and the the gold standard (the framework for international monetary affairs until 1931). The events described had a profound effect upon twentieth-century history: the Depression abetted the rise of Hitler and the demise of the gold standard is a historical cause of inflation.

International Monetary Cooperation Since Bretton Woods

Recent research has provided strong circumstantial evidence for the proposition that sustained deflation -- the result of a mismanaged international gold standard -- was a major cause of the Great Depression of the 1930s. Less clear is the mechanism by which deflation led to depression. In this paper we consider several channels, including effects operating through real wages and through interest rates. Our focus, however, is on the disruptive effect of deflation on the financial system, particularly the banking system. Theory suggests that falling prices, by reducing the net worth of banks and borrowers, can affect flows of credit and thus real activity. Using annual data for twenty-four countries, we confirm that countries which (for historical or institutional reasons) were more vulnerable to severe banking panics also suffered much worse depressions, as did countries which remained on the gold standard. We also find that there may have been a feedback loop through which banking panics, particularly those in the United States, intensified the worldwide deflation.

The Gold Standard, Deflation, and Financial Crisis in the Great Depression: An International Comparison

Europe’s financial crisis cannot be blamed on the Euro, Harold James contends in this probing exploration of the whys, whens, whos, and what-ifs of European monetary union. The current crisis goes deeper, to a series of problems that were debated but not resolved at the time of the Euro’s invention. Since the 1960s, Europeans had been looking for a way to address two conundrums simultaneously: the dollar’s privileged position in the international monetary system, and Germany’s persistent current account surpluses in Europe. The Euro was created under a politically independent central bank to meet the primary goal of price stability. But while the monetary side of union was clearly conceived, other prerequisites of stability were beyond the reach of technocratic central bankers. Issues such as fiscal rules and Europe-wide banking supervision and regulation were thoroughly discussed during planning in the late 1980s and 1990s, but remained in the hands of member states. That omission proved to be a cause of crisis decades later. Here is an account that helps readers understand the European monetary crisis in depth, by tracing behind-the-scenes negotiations using an array of sources unavailable until now, notably from the European Community’s Committee of Central Bank Governors and the Delors Committee of 1988–89, which set out the plan for how Europe could reach its goal of monetary union. As this foundational study makes clear, it was the constant friction between politicians and technocrats that shaped the Euro. And, Euro or no Euro, this clash will continue into the future.

/pdf/making-the-european-monetary-union-3ze4okq489.pdf

Harold James

Papers

The End of Globalization: Lessons from the Great Depression

International Monetary Cooperation since Bretton Woods

International Monetary Cooperation Since Bretton Woods

The Gold Standard, Deflation, and Financial Crisis in the Great Depression: An International Comparison

Making the European Monetary Union