1,721,109 research outputs found
The Law of Primogeniture an d the Transiti o n from Landed Aristocracy to Industriai Democracy
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Did Colonization matter for Growth? An Empirical Exploration into the Historical Causes of Africa's Underdevelopment
No full textGrowth, History, or Institutions? What Explains State Fragilityin Sub-Saharan Africa
Full text linkWe explore the determinants of state fragility in sub-Saharan Africa. Controlling for a wide range of
economic, demographic, geographic and istitutional regressors, we find that institutions, and in
particular the civil liberties index and the number of revolutions, are the main determinants of
fragility, even taking into account their potential endogeneity. Economic factors such as income
growth and investment display a non robust impact after controlling for omitted variables and
reverse causality. Colonial variables reflecting the history of the region display a marginal impact
on fragility once institutions are accounted for
The Evolution of Modern Educational Systems. Technical vs. General Education, Distributional Conflict, and Growth
No full textCOVID-19, Race, and Redlining
Full text linkDiscussion on the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on African Americans has
been at center stage since the outbreak of the epidemic in the United States. To
present day, however, lack of race-disaggregated individual data has prevented a
rigorous assessment of the extent of this phenomenon and the reasons why blacks
may be particularly vulnerable to the disease. Using individual and georeferenced
death data collected daily by the Cook County Medical Examiner, we provide first
evidence that race does affect COVID-19 outcomes. The data confirm that in Cook
County blacks are overrepresented in terms of COVID-19 related deaths since—as
of June 16, 2020—they constitute 35 percent of the dead, so that they are dying at
a rate 1.3 times higher than their population share.
Furthermore, by combining the spatial distribution of mortality with the 1930s
redlining maps for the Chicago area, we obtain a block group level panel dataset
of weekly deaths over the period January 1, 2020-June 16, 2020, over which we
establish that, after the outbreak of the epidemic, historically lower-graded neighborhoods display a sharper increase in mortality, driven by blacks, while no pretreatment differences are detected. Thus, we uncover a persistence influence of the
racial segregation induced by the discriminatory lending practices of the 1930s, by
way of a diminished resilience of the black population to the shock represented by
the COVID-19 outbreak. A heterogeneity analysis reveals that the main channels of
transmission are socioeconomic status and household composition, whose influence
is magnified in combination with a higher black share
The vanishing bequest tax: the comparative evolution of bequest taxation in historical perspective
Full text linkSeveral countries have recently abolished or significantly reduced their taxes on bequests. Bequest taxes, on the other hand, were among the first to be introduced when modern systems of taxation were developed at the end of the nineteenth century. We propose an explanation for these facts which is based on a dynamic political economy model where redistribution is determined not only by wealth inequality but also by sectoral reallocation from agriculture to manufacturing. The model shows that the dynamics of capital accumulation induce a reduction of wealth inequality, which is further accelerated by the redistributive impact of the bequest tax. Through a standard politico-economic mechanism, wealth equalization pushes toward a reduced role of the bequest tax. At the same time, however, a second mechanism is at work, with structural reallocation from agriculture to manufacturing shifting the tax base from hard-to-avoid taxes on land toward easy-to-avoid taxes on capital. The differential treatment of land and capital introduces a source of asymmetry in the tax system which interferes with the determination of the dynamic political equilibrium of the model. Its effect is to compress bequest taxation but also to delay its gradual reduction due to declining wealth inequality. A number of extensions to the basic model allow to match our theory with the long-term evolution of bequest taxation in modern democracies and with the drastic discrepancies currently observed between tax systems in developed and underdeveloped countries
The enfranchisement of women and the welfare state
Full text linkWe offer a rationale for the decision to extend the franchise to women within a politico-economic model where men are richer than women, women display a higher preference for public goods, and women's disenfranchisement carries a societal cost. We first derive the tax rate chosen by the male median voter when women are disenfranchised. Next we show that, as industrialization raises the reward to mental labor relative to physical labor, women's relative wage increases. When the cost of disenfranchisement becomes higher than the cost of the higher tax rate which applies under universal enfranchisement, the male median voter is better off extending the franchise to women. A consequent expansion of the size of government is only to be expected in societies with a relatively high cost of disenfranchisement. We empirically test the implications of the model over the 1870-1930 period. We proxy the gender wage gap with the level of per capita income and the cost of disenfranchisement with the presence of Catholicism, which is associated with a more traditional view of women's role and thus a lower cost. The gender gap in the preferences for public goods is proxied by the availability of divorce, which implies marital instability and a more vulnerable economic position for women. Consistently with the model's predictions, women suffrage is affected positively by per capita income and negatively by the presence of Catholicism and the availability of divorce, while women suffrage increases the size of government only in non-Catholic countries
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