Showing papers in "The Journal of Economic History in 2012"
TL;DR: This article argued that the impact of British educational policies and investments on the supply of schooling in British Africa should not be overstated and argued that mission schools, mainly run by African converts, provided the bulk of education at extremely low costs.
Abstract: British colonial rule has often been praised for its comparatively benign features, such as its support of local educational development. This study argues that the impact of British educational policies and investments on the supply of schooling in British Africa should not be overstated. Until 1940, mission schools, mainly run by African converts, provided the bulk of education at extremely low costs. Given the limited financial capacity of missionary societies, the Africanization of the mission was a prerequisite for rising enrolment rates and this only occurred in areas where the demand for Western education was high. The British happened to control most of these “fertile” areas
164 citations
TL;DR: The authors analyzes the determinants of local institutions in Brazil and finds that institutional quality and distribution of land are partly inherited from the colonial histories experienced by different areas of the country, and that the colonial episodes are correlated with lower provision of public goods.
Abstract: This article analyzes the determinants of local institutions in Brazil. We show that institutional quality and distribution of land are partly inherited from the colonial histories experienced by different areas of the country. The sugar cane boom—characterized by an oligarchic society—is associated with more land inequality. The gold boom—characterized by a heavily inefficient presence of the Portuguese state—is associated with worse governance and access to justice. We do not find similar effects for a postcolonial boom (coffee). We also find that the colonial episodes are correlated with lower provision of public goods.
136 citations
TL;DR: The authors introduced the Americas in the Great Divergence debate by measuring real wages in various North and South American cities between colonization and independence, and comparing them to Europe and Asia, finding that for much of the period, North America was the most prosperous region of the world, while Latin America was much poorer.
Abstract: This article introduces the Americas in the Great Divergence debate by measuring real wages in various North and South American cities between colonization and independence, and comparing them to Europe and Asia. We find that for much of the period, North America was the most prosperous region of the world, while Latin America was much poorer. We then discuss a series of hypotheses that can explain these results, including migration, the demography of the American Indian populations, and the various labor systems implemented in the continent.
128 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a simple model of the tournament shows why it led European rulers to spend heavily on improving the gunpowder technology, and why political incentives and military conditions kept such a tournament from developing elsewhere in the world.
Abstract: By the eighteenth century, Europeans dominated the military technology of gunpowder weapons, which had enormous advantages for fighting war at a distance and conquering other parts of the world. Their dominance, however, was surprising, because the technology had originated in China and been used with expertise in Asia and the Middle East. To account for their prowess with gunpowder weapons, historians have often invoked competition, but it cannot explain why they pushed this technology further than anyone else. The answer lies in the peculiar form that military competition took in western Europe: it was a winner take all tournament, and a simple model of the tournament shows why it led European rulers to spend heavily on improving the
gunpowder technology, and why political incentives and military conditions kept such a tournament from developing elsewhere in the world. As a result, rulers elsewhere in Eurasia had much less reason to advance the gunpowder technology or to catch up with the Europeans. The consequences were huge, from colonialism to the slave trade and even the Industrial Revolution.
95 citations
TL;DR: The authors explored how the continent's financial troubles affected Britain's banking system and found that international contagion was crucial in transmitting the 1931 global financial crisis, and used new balance sheet data to quantify this shock.
Abstract: The Central European panic of the spring 1931 is often presented as a cause of the sterling crisis of September. But what was the transmission channel? This article explores how the continent's financial troubles affected Britain's banking system. The freeze of Central European assets created a liquidity strain for London merchant banks because they had accepted (guaranteed) the commercial bills of German merchants. I use new balance sheet data to quantify this shock and explore how the liquidity crisis contributed to the sterling crisis. The evidence demonstrates that international contagion was crucial in transmitting the 1931 global financial crisis.
89 citations
TL;DR: The authors compared the long-term economic development of China compared with Europe on the basis of a detailed comparison of structure and level of GDP in part of the Yangzi delta and the Netherlands in the 1820s.
Abstract: �This article tests recent ideas about the long-term economic development of China compared with Europe on the basis of a detailed comparison of structure and level of GDP in part of the Yangzi delta and the Netherlands in the 1820s. We find that Dutch GDP per capita was almost twice as high as in the Yangzi delta. Agricultural productivity there was at about the same level as in the Netherlands (and England), but large productivity gaps existed in industry and services. We attempt to explain this concluding that differences in factor costs are probably behind disparities in labor productivity. hough comparisons of the economic situation between China and West Europe can be traced back to Adam Smith, 1 they have only recently become a hotspot of research. Twentieth-century scholarship’s conventional wisdom is that the Chinese people, in particular the peasantry, had lived at a “minimum subsistence level” of living for centuries before the 1949 Revolution. 2 To be sure, this trope was questioned by some leading historians who suggested that the Chinese peasant lived quite well in the late imperial times when compared with their counterparts in the major countries of early modern
87 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a conceptual framework that addresses these questions and apply it to the frontiers of Australia, the United States, and Brazil, and stress the crucial role of politics as frontiers develop by identifying situations where the competition for land by those with de facto rights and those with jure rights leads to violence or potential conflicts.
Abstract: How do property rights evolve when unoccupied areas attract economic use? Who are the first claimants on the frontier and how do they establish their property rights? When do governments provide de jure property rights? We present a conceptual framework that addresses these questions and apply it to the frontiers of Australia, the United States, and Brazil. Our framework stresses the crucial role of politics as frontiers develop by identifying situations where the competition for land by those with de facto rights and those with de jure rights leads to violence or potential conflicts.
81 citations
TL;DR: The authors identify a different set of constitutional reforms, explain why precedents for these reforms did not lessen their revolutionary impact, and show that the evidence, properly evaluated, supports a view of the Glorious Revolution as a watershed.
Abstract: Douglass North and Barry Weingast's seminal account of the Glorious Revolution argued that specific constitutional reforms enhanced the credibility of the English Crown, leading to much stronger public finances. Critics have argued that the most important reforms occurred incrementally before the Revolution; and that neither interest rates on sovereign debt nor enforcement of property rights improved sharply after the Revolution. In this article, I identify a different set of constitutional reforms, explain why precedents for these reforms did not lessen their revolutionary impact, and show that the evidence, properly evaluated, supports a view of the Revolution as a watershed.
77 citations
TL;DR: This article analyzed the characteristics of debts, examining borrowing purposes, familial links, communal ties, and documentary instruments, and found that ordinary people, even in a less developed economy in rural central Europe, sought to invest profitably, smooth consumption, bridge low liquidity, and hold savings in financial form.
Abstract: The “less-developed” interior of early modern Europe, especially the rural economy, is often regarded as financially comatose. This article investigates this view using a rich data set of marriage and death inventories for seventeenth-century Germany. It first analyzes the characteristics of debts, examining borrowing purposes, familial links, communal ties, and documentary instruments. It then explores how borrowing varied with gender, age, marital status, occupation, date, and asset portfolio. It finds that ordinary people, even in a “less-developed” economy in rural central Europe, sought to invest profitably, smooth consumption, bridge low liquidity, and hold savings in financial form.
70 citations
TL;DR: The Cobden-Chevalier Treaty of 1860 is regarded as central turning point in nineteenth-century trade policy, inaugurating a free trade era in Western Europe.
Abstract: The Cobden-Chevalier Treaty of 1860 is regarded as central turning point in nineteenth-century trade policy, inaugurating a free trade era in Western Europe. We reexamine this story and put it into global perspective with a new database covering more than 7,500 data points for 11 categories of manufactures in 41 countries and colonies around the world between 1846 and 1880. It reveals that bilateralism after 1860 reinforced a process already underway before. Nevertheless, we highlight that trade liberalization was a global phenomenon over most of our period, so that the prominent British case appears as typical rather than exceptional.
64 citations
TL;DR: The lessons of history were widely invoked in 2008/09 as analysts and policymakers sought to make sense of the global financial crisis as mentioned in this paper, and analogies with the early stages of the Great Depression of the 1930s were widely drawn.
Abstract: “The lessons of history” were widely invoked in 2008/09 as analysts and policymakers sought to make sense of the global financial crisis. Specifically, analogies with the early stages of the Great Depression of the 1930s were widely drawn. Building on work in cognitive science and literature on foreign policy making, this article seeks to account for the influence of this particular historical analogy and asks how it shaped both perceptions and the economic policy response. It asks how historical scholarship might be better organized to inform the process of economic policymaking. It concludes with some reflections on how research in economic history will be reshaped by the crisis.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore the pattern of land rents and agricultural productivity across nineteenth-century Prussia to gain new insights on the causes of the Little Divergence between European regions.
Abstract: This article explores the pattern of land rents and agricultural productivity across nineteenth-century Prussia to gain new insights on the causes of the “Little Divergence” between European regions. We argue that agriculture reacted to urban and industrial development rather than shaping it. In the spirit of Johann von Thunen and Ernst Engel, we develop a theoretical model to test how access to urban demand affected agricultural development. We show that the effect of urban demand is causal and that it is in line with recent findings on a limited degree of interregional market integration in nineteenth-century Prussia.
TL;DR: This article used grain prices in Europe and the Americas to determine the extent and dynamics of market integration throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with special attention paid to changes in residual dispersion of the univariate models of relative prices between markets.
Abstract: Globalization, if defined as the integration of international commodity markets, started in the eighteenth century and progressed gradually and with some setbacks into the nineteenth century, instead of suddenly appearing at some point after the 1820s. We use grain prices in Europe and the Americas to determine the extent and dynamics of market integration throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. An innovative methodology, with special attention being paid to changes in residual dispersion of the univariate models of relative prices between markets, permits us to obtain a measure of market integration over time.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue for a preventive check on marriages in medieval and early modern England based on manorial data, and they find evidence for preventive checks on marriages and births.
Abstract: England's post-Reformation demographic regime has been characterized as “low pressure.” Yet the evidence hitherto for the presence of a preventive check, defined as the short-run response of marriage and births to variations in living standards, is rather weak. New evidence in this article strengthens the case for the preventive check in both medieval and early modern England. We invoke manorial data to argue the case for a preventive check on marriages in the Middle Ages. Our analysis of the post-1540 period, based on parish-level rather than aggregate data, finds evidence for a preventive check on marriages and births.
TL;DR: This paper examined variation in state participation in the Sheppard-Towner program, and found that the timing of women's suffrage had an important impact on public health spending after the program's repeal.
Abstract: Enacted in 1922 and repealed in 1929, the Sheppard-Towner program gave federal matching money to states to provide public health education to mothers. We examine variation in state participation in the program, and find that the timing of women's suffrage had an important impact. However, we find that the effect of suffrage was short-lived and did not influence public health spending after the program's repeal. We also find no evidence of a “demonstration effect.” On average, the states that continued activities after Sheppard-Towner ended were those that had sizable public health budgets before the program had even begun.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyzed the effects of parliamentary representation on road infrastructure expenditure during the Spanish Restoration and found that the allocation of administrative resources among provinces depended both on the delegation characteristics (such as the share of MPs with party leadership positions, and their degree of electoral independence), and the regime's global search for stability.
Abstract: This article analyzes the effects of parliamentary representation on road infrastructure expenditure during the Spanish Restoration. Using a panel data set of Spanish provinces in 1880–1914, we find that the allocation of administrative resources among provinces depended both on the delegation characteristics (such as the share of MPs with party leadership positions, and their degree of electoral independence), and the regime's global search for stability. These results point to the importance of electoral dynamics within semi-democratic political systems, and offer an example of the influence of government tactics on infrastructure allocation.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors studied the art market in the XVII century in the Venetian Republic and other Italian art centres, analyzing original contracts between patrons and artists for paintings of historical subject.
Abstract: We study the art market in the XVII century in the Venetian Republic and other Italian art centres, analyzing original contracts between patrons and artists for paintings of historical subject: this is one of the …rst markets in modern history for which econometric evidence of the application of the basic laws of economics and rational market behavior is found Size of
TL;DR: In this paper, a quantitative analysis of wealth inequality in the Ottoman Empire, employing data from probate inventories (terekes) of eighteenth-century Kastamonu, a town located in northern Anatolia, is presented.
Abstract: This article offers a quantitative analysis of wealth inequality in the Ottoman Empire, employing data from probate inventories (terekes) of eighteenth-century Kastamonu, a town located in northern Anatolia. Extracting information on wealth levels and personal characteristics of individuals, we estimate aggregate measures of wealth inequality, namely the Gini coefficient, the coefficient of variation, and the wealth shares of the wealthiest 10 and 25 percent of estates. We use regression analysis to identify the time trend of wealth inequality and determine how warfare, significant weather events, macroeconomic variables, and shifts in population characteristics affected it.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider the successful early emergence of cooperative creameries in Denmark in the late nineteenth century within the framework of the new institutional economics presented by Williamson (2000).
Abstract: We consider the successful early emergence of cooperative creameries in Denmark in the late nineteenth century within the framework of the ‘new institutional economics’ presented by Williamson (2000). Previous work has focused on the social cohesion of the Danes, but we demonstrate that this was not sufficient for the success. The Danish legal system, which we compare to that of other countries, was also of crucial importance, along with the way in which rules were monitored and enforced. Of particular importance was the Danish cooperatives’ use of contracts, which we explore with evidence from a variety of primary and secondary sources.
TL;DR: The Spanish state never achieved much autonomy from urban and regional governments because regional societies had institutionalized forms of resistance and collected the Crown’s tax revenue via negotiated contracts as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: of fragmented authority as well as Spain’s uneven urbanization, in which peripheral cities grew while interior towns stagnated. Early modern Spain clearly differed from the European model in which monarchs increasingly asserted control over the provinces, became more effective at collecting taxes, and supported large armies. The Spanish state never achieved much autonomy from urban and regional governments because regional societies had institutionalized forms of resistance. They also collected the Crown’s tax revenue via negotiated contracts. Domestic transport was inefficient, taxes varied between provinces, and lack of integration led to inefficient use of resources. Together, these factors explain the lack of market integration illustrated by the bacalao trade. In Spain, the Crown was not so much ruler as coordinator of a country composed of entrenched, autonomous urban and regional societies. Grafe’s findings agree well with my own and has enhanced my view that Spain has followed a distinctive path toward modernity. She does not follow the story into the nineteenth century, but the pattern reappeared after the Napoleonic Wars and persists to this day.
TL;DR: The authors in this article examined the economic history of the country and found that before the revolution, incomes were 50 to 60 percent of European levels and 30 percent of the United States.
Abstract: We examine Cuban GDP over time and across space. We find that Cuba was once a prosperous middle-income economy. On the eve of the revolution, incomes were 50 to 60 percent of European levels. They were among the highest in Latin America at about 30 percent of the United States. In relative terms, Cuba was richer earlier on. Income per capita during the 1920s was in striking distance of Western Europe and the Southern United States. After the revolution, Cuba slipped down the world income distribution. Current levels of income per capita appear below their pre-revolutionary peaks.
TL;DR: This article showed that preindustrial farm employment shares can be estimated from probate occupation reports and that only 60% employed in farming in England in 1560-1579 and 1653-1660, consistent with the high incomes indicated by wages.
Abstract: Gregory Clark argued in A Farewell to Alms that preindustrial societies, including England, were Malthusian. Day wages show incomes were trendless: as high in Europe in the medieval era as in 1800, even in England. The opposed view is that England and the Netherlands grew substantially from 1200 to 1800. Early day wages overestimate living standards. Here we show that preindustrial farm employment shares can be estimated from probate occupation reports. These imply only 60 percent employed in farming in England in 1560–1579 and 1653–1660, consistent with the high incomes indicated by wages. Day wages do measure preindustrial living standards.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors exploit the circumstances surrounding industrialization in South Carolina between 1881 and 1900 to show that the establishment of textile mills coincided with a 6-10 percent fertility reduction.
Abstract: Economists frequently hypothesize that industrialization contributed to the United States’ nineteenth-century fertility decline. I exploit the circumstances surrounding industrialization in South Carolina between 1881 and 1900 to show that the establishment of textile mills coincided with a 6–10 percent fertility reduction. Migrating households are responsible for most of the observed decline. Higher rates of textile employment and child mortality for migrants can explain part of the result, and I conjecture that an increase in child-raising costs induced by the separation of migrant households from their extended families may explain the remaining gap in migrant-native fertility.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors compared the wealth and status of New York City households who owned corporate stock to the general population both in 1791, when there were only two corporations in the state, and in 1826, where there were hundreds.
Abstract: Using newly collected data, this article compares the wealth and status of New York City households who owned corporate stock to the general population both in 1791, when there were only two corporations in the state, and in 1826, when there were hundreds. The results indicate that although corporate stock was held principally by the city's elite merchants in both periods, share ownership became more widespread over time among less affluent households. In particular, later corporations were owned and managed by investors who were less wealthy than the stockholders of corporations created in earlier, less democratic periods.
TL;DR: The contribution of motion pictures to aggregate GDP and TFP growth was much smaller than that of general purpose technologies steam, railways, and electricity, but not insignificant as mentioned in this paper, showing that productivity growth in entertainment surpassed that in any manufacturing industry between 1900 and 1938.
Abstract: Motion pictures constituted a revolutionary new technology that transformed entertainment—a rival, labor-intensive service—into a non-rival commodity. Combining growth accounting with a new output concept shows productivity growth in entertainment surpassed that in any manufacturing industry between 1900 and 1938. Productivity growth in personal services was not stagnant by definition, as current understanding has it, but instead was unparalleled in some cases. Motion pictures’ contribution to aggregate GDP and TFP growth was much smaller than that of general purpose technologies steam, railways, and electricity, but not insignificant. An observer might have noted that “motion pictures are everywhere except in the productivity statistics.”“So long as the number of persons who can be reached by a human voice is strictly limited, it is not very likely that any singer will make an advance on the £10,000 said to have been earned in a season by Mrs. Billington at the beginning of the last century, nearly as great as that which the business leaders of the present generation have made on the last.”1Alfred Marshall
TL;DR: In this paper, Zuijderduijn shows how the development of markets for public renten in northern France, Flanders, Brabant, and the Holy Roman Empire largely paralleled that in Holland, and assumes rather than demonstrates that social selection was a disease from which the latter was spared.
Abstract: surely these figures have little to tell about the social depth of the market; likely enough, the Dordrecht mason Aert Jansz was concerned about an expansion of the urban debt because this typically implied a rise in the burden of indirect taxation and thus a fall in his real wage, rather than being worried by the risk of default. Chapters 5 and 6 turn to private capital markets. Zuijderduijn claims that increasingly rules were set centrally, while highlighting that enforcement remained local; his emphasis is on advancements in the definition of property rights, as written records of renten were kept by local authorities, and contract enforcement, as the compensation of creditors was assisted by organizing seizures of goods, auctions, and the like. All in all, it seems that strong cities, more directly than a strong central government, were crucial in making such developments possible, particularly as the examples that Zuijderduijn provides refer to local transactions. Though patchy, there is no denying that the evidence presented suggests that a lively market developed: secondary transactions were recorded as early 1314, by 1462 perhaps as much as a third of the populations of the small cities of Edam and De Zeevang received or paid renten, and interest rates almost halved between 1384 and 1440. As Zuijderduijn rightly points out, it is difficult to explain this drop with the Black Death or monetary policy. Nevertheless, the conclusion that it was all due to institutions remains hasty: other analyses do find negative associations between economic expansion and the cost of borrowing, and the fall was more abrupt than predicted by a gradually improving institutional quality. In an apt addition to the original Ph.D. manuscript, Chapter 7 compares Holland’s to other capital markets. Unfortunately, the opportunity to systematically support the claims that transaction costs were indeed particularly low in Holland, and that this caused capital accumulation and economic growth is missed. Only a few interest rate figures are presented, and one looks in vain for a systematic comparison of transaction costs, size of the capital markets, and economic performance. Instead, Zuijderduijn shows how the development of markets for public renten in northern France, Flanders, Brabant, and the Holy Roman Empire largely paralleled that in Holland, and assumes rather than demonstrates that social selection was a disease from which the latter was spared. The comparison with England merely reiterates the known fact that professional moneylenders offered bad conditions of borrowing to rulers, while that with the Italian city-states overlooks that the system of forced loans originated during the “commercial revolution”—a period of uncontroversial economic success for the peninsula—and that it developed within a context of weak feudal structures. Hence, the claims that weak feudalism was sufficient to avert regressive redistributive effects in Holland, and that, in turn, this implied growth instead of stagnation seem unjustified. In conclusion, there is much that is interesting and valuable in this book, but it is not always possible to share Zuijderduijn’s often triumphant tone.
TL;DR: The authors found that factor price changes account for little of the growth in output per man-hour in nineteenth-century cotton weaving, and that most of the labor saving bias arose from improved labor quality.
Abstract: How much of the rapid growth in output per man-hour in nineteenth-century cotton weaving arose from technical change and how much arose from price-driven substitution of capital for labor? Using an engineering production function, I find that factor price changes account for little of the growth in output per man-hour. However, much of the growth and most of the apparent labor-saving bias arose not from inventions, but from improved labor quality—better workers spent less time monitoring the looms. Labor quality played a critical role in the persistent association between economic growth and capital deepening in this important sector.
TL;DR: In this article, Dennison studied the Sheremetyev estate in the non-black earth region of Russia and found that simple-family households dominated the land and labor markets.
Abstract: the inefficient redistributional commune and retarded peasant mobility. It also created demographic problems by encouraging large families to take advantage of communal redistributional practices. Moreover, the rigid government of the commune by village elders held back the more innovative younger commune members. The first studies of Russian growth, such as by Raymond Goldsmith and myself, however found that Russian growth of both industry and agriculture was average or even high by European standards and that labor was mobile. If the stereotype were true, growth of this nature was not possible. The conclusion: The stereotype was wrong. Dennison takes on what she calls “the peasant myth,” which is her expression for what I call the Gershchenkron stereotype. She chose the huge Sheremetyev estate, which encompassed a number of villages and individual communes. The estate kept and preserved remarkable records, spanning a century—records of land transaction, assembly minutes, complaints, estate inventories, and the like. The records are far from perfect and require some leaps of faith, but they reveal a picture that fractures most of the “Peasant Myth.” Sheremetyev serfdom involved active land and labor markets. Peasant assemblies were not dominated by elders, but often included the youngest and most dynamic peasants (who tried to avoid service because they had better things to do). The only real active commune covered the entire estate and received significant input from the estate manager. The owners rarely visited; they left matters in the hands of professional staff. One feature of the “Peasant Myth” appeared to hold; namely, collective responsibility for taxes, but on this crucial issue records are tenuous. The few records that exist show few households in arrears. Contrary to expectations, simple-family households dominated. Dennison’s study of the Sheremetyev estate calls into serious question the “Peasant Myth,” but she does explain carefully that it was located in the nonblack earth region, where peasants paid for their land primarily in taxes rather than work on communal lands. Many households contributed to their tax payments by nonagricultural work either in the countryside or in the city. A minority lived from farming alone. This is important but does not detract from her conclusions about the institutional framework of peasant life, which should have been relatively constant across Russia. I know the painstaking nature of case study work with ancient and incomplete records. We need more of them, but there are few scholars capable of such work. My hope is that Russian economic historians will jump in to fill the void. I recommend Tracy Dennison’s book highly. It is compact, well organized and written, and a surprisingly easy read.
TL;DR: In this paper, a new panel data set on the remuneration of top executives in 246 firms was used to study the last notable decrease in the past 70 years in executive pay, and they found that government regulation had, at best, a modest effect on executive pay.
Abstract: Executive pay fell during the 1940s, marking the last notable decrease in the past 70 years. We study this decline using a new panel data set on the remuneration of top executives in 246 firms. Government regulation—including explicit salary restrictions and taxation—had, at best, a modest effect on executive pay. By contrast, a decline in the returns to firm size and an increase in the power of labor unions contributed greatly to the reduction in executive compensation relative to other workers’ earnings from 1940 to 1946. The continued decrease in relative executive pay remains largely unexplained.
TL;DR: This article examined the strategies interwar working-class British households used to "smooth" consumption over time and guard against negative contingencies such as illness, unemployment, and death, and found that households made extensive use of expenditure-smoothing devices.
Abstract: We examine the strategies interwar working-class British households used to “smooth” consumption over time and guard against negative contingencies such as illness, unemployment, and death. Newly discovered returns from the U.K. Ministry of Labour's 1937/38 Household Expenditure Survey are used to fully categorize expenditure smoothing via nineteen credit/savings vehicles. We find that households made extensive use of expenditure-smoothing devices. Families' reliance on expenditure-smoothing is shown to be inversely related to household income, while households also used these mechanisms more intensively during expenditure crisis phases of the family life cycle, especially the years immediately after new household formation.