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

https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/81822/1/02-28.pdf

Economic growth and income inequality

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.

Does Oil Hinder Democracy

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)

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

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.

/pdf/institutions-and-the-path-to-the-modern-economy-4dlla029fs.pdf

Institutions and the path to the modern economy

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.

/pdf/gender-agricultural-production-and-the-theory-of-the-2qev0ck25u.pdf

Gender, Agricultural Production, and the Theory of the Household

This articles examines the impact of two themes in Kenneth Sokoloff’s research on mid nineteenth-century French mortgage markets. In particular, the negative effects of inequality and the positive effects of large, competitive markets. We document negative externalities from inequality: when the distribution of wealth is too skewed, the middle class gets excluded from the market. The second externality is a positive one that is generated by the geographical density of markets. We further distinguish its effects in the credit market itself from possible spillovers
from the comparable externality in product markets. We proceed in four steps. We begin by
summarizing the sources of our data and our aggregate findings of our research on French credit
markets. We then move to an analysis of local credit markets, which suggests that inequality had adverse effects on lending. The next step is to search for the positive externality by examining loans between inhabitants of different cities and towns. We show that there were indeed positive network externalities in credit markets, which are consistent with a queuing model. Although most loans were local, the credit network allowed for significant inter-market flows of resources.

History, Geography, and the Markets for Mortgage Loans in Nineteenth-Century France

This paper uses a sample of leases and a new method to examine total factor productivity in the Paris Basin during the years 1450-1789. After defending the methodology, the paper analyzes he results from the sample, which should dispel the myth of agricultural stagnation in Old-Regime France, at least in the Paris Basin.

Social History and Agricultural Productivity: The Paris Basin, 1450-1800

Wills and Statistics: Tobit Analysis and the Counter Reformation in Lyon On May 28, 1678, from his sickbed in Longes, near Lyon, Pierre Remillier, a prosperous farmer, started to dictate his will. Like most of his contemporaries, Remillier began by blessing himself and by invoking his religion: as a "good Christian and Catholic" he "entrusted his soul to God the Father Almighty and to his only begotten son our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." He then folded his hands in prayer and begged "the most glorious Virgin Mary Mother of God" to intercede for him and act as his "advocate" so that God

Wills and Statistics: Tobit Analysis and the Counter Reformation in Lyon

What drove the precocious industrialisation in Britain was not demand for machines but rather (as Joel Mokyr and his co‐authors have argued) the supply of useful knowledge and the skills needed to put it into practice. They were the force behind early innovation. But they did not act alone. They were reinforced by British institutions, which gave the British economy a century's head start over the rest of Europe and likely too over the rich parts of Asia. The institutions included a uniform fiscal and legal system; an effective means of training apprentices, who had escaped from local guild control; and a parliament that could raise taxes and exercise eminent domain but was at the same time a credible protector of private property. Among other things, these institutions facilitated the transportation of goods such as coal and they were backed up by policies that worked in favour of manufacturing. Together, the institutions and policies generated agglomeration effects that encouraged innovation. The agglomeration effects were more pronounced in western Europe than anywhere else in Eurasia and more developed in Britain than anywhere else.

The Great Divergence: Why Britain Industrialised First

Cet article cherche a comprendre comment se creent (ou se detruisent) les techniques de savoir des marches du credit ainsi que les institutions auxquelles s’adosse ce capital social essentiel a leur fonctionnement. Il examine soixante-sept marches locaux repartis dans toute la France en saisissant leur evolution a partir de trois coupes situees de part et d’autre de ce choc majeur qu’est la Revolution pour pouvoir en suivre les effets. Le credit se reorganise alors non dans le cadre de petites regions ni dans un espace national unifie, mais plutot en deux grands ensembles – l’un au Nord, l’autre au Sud – ou des pratiques du credit distinctes evoluent separement. Comme chacun d’eux, loin d’etre homogene, se hierarchise entre ville et campagnes, il en resulte quatre systemes qui se reperent aussi bien si l’on observe les instruments de credit, les intermediaires ou les circuits de formation que ces derniers se donnent. Pour expliquer cette diversite, il faut accepter que les institutions formelles et informelles se deploient dans l’espace d’une facon qui depend de l’activite des marches mais aussi de l’inegale repartition de la richesse.

Philip T. Hoffman

Papers

History, Geography, and the Markets for Mortgage Loans in Nineteenth-Century France

Social History and Agricultural Productivity: The Paris Basin, 1450-1800

Wills and Statistics: Tobit Analysis and the Counter Reformation in Lyon

The Great Divergence: Why Britain Industrialised First

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