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Philip T. Hoffman

Bio: Philip T. Hoffman is an academic researcher from California Institute of Technology. The author has contributed to research in topics: Financial intermediary & Bond market. The author has an hindex of 28, co-authored 68 publications receiving 2100 citations.


Papers
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article introduced a concept of real, as opposed to nominal, inequality of income or wealth, which suggests some historical reinterpretations, buttressed by a closer look at consumption by the rich.
Abstract: Introducing a concept of real, as opposed to nominal, inequality of income or wealth suggests some historical reinterpretations, buttressed by a closer look at consumption by the rich. The purchasing powers of different income classes depend on how relative prices move. Relative prices affected real inequality more strongly in earlier centuries than in the twentieth. Between 1500 and about 1800, staple food and fuels became dearer, while luxury goods, especially servants, became cheaper, greatly widening the inequality of lifestyles. Peace, industrialization, and globalization reversed this inegalitarian price effect in the nineteenth century, at least for England.

236 citations

Book
01 Jan 2000
TL;DR: Priceless markets as discussed by the authors shows how credit markets functioned in Paris, through the agency of notaries, during a critical period of French history, and challenges the usual assumption that organized financial markets - and hence the opportnity for economic growth - did not emerge outside of England and the Netherlands until the 19th century.
Abstract: This pathbreaking book shows how credit markets functioned in Paris, through the agency of notaries, during a critical period of French history. Its authors challenge the usual assumption that organized financial markets - and hence the opportnity for economic growth - did not emerge outside of England and the Netherlands until the 19th century. The authors show that as early as the Old Regime, financial intermediaries in France were mobilizing a great tide of capital and arranging thousands of loans between borrowers and lenders. The implications for historians and economists are substantial. The role of notaries operating in Paris that "Priceless Markets" uncovers has never before been recognized. In the wake of this innovative new study, historians will also have to rethink the origins of the French Revolution. As the authors show, the crisis of 1787-88 did not simply ignite revolt; it was intimately bound up in an economic struggle that reached far back into the 18th century, and continued will into the 1800s.

154 citations

Book Chapter
01 Jan 1997
TL;DR: The authors argued that institutions are not fixed and exogenous, and their variation is ultimately what explains why some economies remain mired in abject poverty while others manage to prosper, and they have been called the cause of long-term economic growth.
Abstract: Douglass C. North has devoted much of his career to hunting the causes of long-term economic growth. Throughout his quest, he has urged economists to look beyond the usual sources of growth and exhorted them to pay particular attention to institutional change. Institutions, he argues, are not fixed and exogenous, and their variation is ultimately what explains why some economies remain mired in abject poverty while others manage to prosper.

110 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, Hoffman and Kathryn proposed a method to solve the problem of the "SACKS" problem by using the KATHRYN algorithm. But the method was not suitable for the case of the HOFFMAN algorithm.
Abstract: Contents HOFFMAN PHILIP T. NORBERG KATHRYN 1. SACKS DAVID HARRIS 2. JONES J.R. 3. VEENENDAAL JR. AUGUSTUS J. 4. THOMPSON I. A. A. 5. THOMPSON I. A. A. 6. HOFFMAN PHILIP T. 7. NORBERG KATHRYN HOFFMAN PHILIP T. NORBERG KATHRYN

102 citations


Cited by
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01 Jan 2002
TL;DR: This article investigated whether income inequality affects subsequent growth in a cross-country sample for 1965-90, using the models of Barro (1997), Bleaney and Nishiyama (2002) and Sachs and Warner (1997) with negative results.
Abstract: We investigate whether income inequality affects subsequent growth in a cross-country sample for 1965-90, using the models of Barro (1997), Bleaney and Nishiyama (2002) and Sachs and Warner (1997), with negative results. We then investigate the evolution of income inequality over the same period and its correlation with growth. The dominating feature is inequality convergence across countries. This convergence has been significantly faster amongst developed countries. Growth does not appear to influence the evolution of inequality over time. Outline

3,770 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors examined three aspects of this "oil impedes democracy" claim and found that oil exports are strongly associated with authoritarian rule, and that other types of mineral exports have a similar antidemocratic effect, while other commodity exports do not.
Abstract: Some scholars suggest that the Middle East's oil wealth helps explain its failure to democratize. This article examines three aspects of this “oil impedes democracy” claim. First, is it true? Does oil have a consistendy antidemocratic effect on states, once other factors are accounted for? Second, can this claim be generalized? Is it true only in the Middle East or elsewhere as well? Is it true for other types of mineral wealth and other types of commodity wealth or only for oil? Finally, if oil does have antidemocratic properties, what is the causal mechanism?The author uses pooled time-series cross-national data from 113 states between 1971 and 1997 to show that oil exports are strongly associated with authoritarian rule; that this effect is not limited to the Middle East; and that other types of mineral exports have a similar antidemocratic effect, while other types of commodity exports do not.The author also tests three explanations for this pattern: a “rentier effect,” which suggests that resource-rich governments use low tax rates and patronage to dampen democratic pressures; a “repression effect,” which holds that resource wealth enables governments to strengthen their internal security forces and hence repress popular movements; and a “modernization effect,” which implies that growth that is based on the export of oil and minerals will fail to bring about die social and cultural changes that tend to produce democratic government. He finds at least limited support for all three effects.

2,795 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is shown that the full set of hydromagnetic equations admit five more integrals, besides the energy integral, if dissipative processes are absent, which made it possible to formulate a variational principle for the force-free magnetic fields.
Abstract: where A represents the magnetic vector potential, is an integral of the hydromagnetic equations. This -integral made it possible to formulate a variational principle for the force-free magnetic fields. The integral expresses the fact that motions cannot transform a given field in an entirely arbitrary different field, if the conductivity of the medium isconsidered infinite. In this paper we shall show that the full set of hydromagnetic equations admit five more integrals, besides the energy integral, if dissipative processes are absent. These integrals, as we shall presently verify, are I2 =fbHvdV, (2)

1,858 citations

Book
Avner Greif1
01 Jan 2006
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a multi-disciplinary perspective to study endogenous institutions and their dynamics, including the influence of the past, the ability of institutions to change, and the difficulty to study them empirically and devise a policy aimed at altering them.
Abstract: It is widely believed that current disparities in economic, political, and social outcomes reflect distinct institutions. Institutions are invoked to explain why some countries are rich and others poor, some democratic and others dictatorial. But arguments of this sort gloss over the question of what institutions are, how they come about, and why they persist. They also fail to explain why institutions are influenced by the past, why it is that they can sometimes change, why they differ so much from society to society, and why it is hard to study them empirically and devise a policy aimed at altering them. This 2006 book seeks to overcome these problems, which have exercised economists, sociologists, political scientists, and a host of other researchers who use the social sciences to study history, law, and business administration. It presents a multi-disciplinary perspective to study endogenous institutions and their dynamics.

1,809 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article found that plots controlled by women are farmed much less intensively than similar plots within the household controlled by men, implying that about 6 percent of the household's output is lost due to inefficient factor allocation.
Abstract: Virtually all models of the household assume that the allocation of resources is Pareto efficient. Within many African households, agricultural production occurs on many plots controlled by different members of the household. Pareto efficiency implies that factors should be allocated efficiently across these plots. I find, in contrast, that plots controlled by women are farmed much less intensively than similar plots within the household controlled by men. The estimates imply that about 6 percent of output is lost because of inefficient factor allocation within the household. The paper suggests a new approach to modeling intrahousehold allocation consistent with the empirical results.

1,257 citations