Economic History Association
Abstracts of Papers Presented at the Annual Meeting
Source: The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 65, No. 2 (Jun., 2005), pp. 550-571
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Economic History Association
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AbstractsofPapers Presented at the Annual
Meeting
SESSION 1A:LOCATION,LOCATION,LOCATION:THE GEOGRAPHYOF
INVENTIONAND INNOVATION
How Silicon Valley's Skilled Immigrants are Transforming the Geography of
Innovation
Silicon Valley's high technology economy was created in the 1960s and 1970s by
engineers from the east and Midwest of the United States. By 2000 over 40 percentof
the region's high-skilled workers were foreign-born, overwhelmingly from Asia.
These U.S.-educated immigrantengineers are transformingthe geography of innovation as they build technical communities that link Silicon Valley to centers of lower
cost skill in their home countries.In a process that is more akin to "braincirculation"
than "brain drain," these closely knit networks of engineers and entrepreneursare
transferringtechnology and know-how between distantregional economies faster and
more flexibly than most large corporations.By seeding localized processes of entrepreneurialexperimentationin formerlyperipheraleconomies, while maintainingclose
ties to the technology and marketsin Silicon Valley, networksof skilled immigrantsin
the 1990s creatednew centers of innovationin Israel and Taiwan. A comparableprocess is now underwayin regions of China and India, with significant long-termconsequences for patternsof innovationand economic growth.
ANNALEESAXENIAN,University of California, Berkeley
The Geographyof Inventionin High- and Low-TechnologyIndustries. Evidencefrom
the Second IndustrialRevolution
Productionin "technologically-mature"
manufacturingindustrieshas in recentyears
relocated
from
increasingly
more-developed to less-developed countries with lower
costs of labor. It is not clear, however, if these lattercountrieswill realize corresponding increases in their generationof new technologicalknowledge. More generally, we
do not fully understandthe sources of geographic clustering in invention, or how
prevalent and persistent such clusters are. To investigate these issues, this paper explores the geographicpatternsof inventionin the shoe, textile and electric industriesin
the United States duringthe Second IndustrialRevolution. Using both U.S. patentrecords and informationabout the inventorsdrawnfrom census manuscriptsand city directories,I find that in generalthe location of inventiondoes not appearso directly, or
closely, related to the location of production. The intriguing implication is that because individuals with the appropriateknowledge and skills to be effective contributors to new technology are often young and scarce in supply, they will be inclined to
migrateto those areas where demand for the technology (and rents to their scarce human capital) is high and resources to supportthe R&D are available. The historical
evidence appearsto suggest that invention and productionmight not be clustered in
the same location. This may be unwelcome news for developing countriesthat hope to
emerge as centers of invention after having attractedshifts in manufacturingcapacity
from developed countries.
DEE SUTTHIPHISAL,McGill
550
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Do Patents Encourage Knowledge Spillovers? Evidencefrom the Geographic Location ofInnovations at the CrystalPalace
The two primarygoals of patent laws are to encourageinvention and to diffuse the
new knowledge from invention. This paperuses differences in patentingrates across
industriesto examine whether patenting helps to diffuse technical knowledge, or, in
other words, whether patents facilitate knowledge spillovers. Preliminary findings
based on the location of 4,465 British exhibits at the CrystalPalace Exhibitionin London in 1851 suggest that, in the nineteenth century at least, patents facilitated the
spread of new ideas. Innovations in industries with high patenting rates were geographicallydispersed,whereas innovations in industrieswith low patentingrates exhibited strongpatternsof geographicconcentration,not only within countries,but also
within cities.
PETRA
MOSER,MassachusettsInstituteof Technologyand NBER
SESSION iB: LONG-RUNECONOMICGROWTHAND INEQUALITY
Long-Run International Inequality in Human Development and Real Income: Evidencefrom Europe and the New World
Is inequality cumulatingover time? Has the gap between Core and Peripherywidened duringthe last two centuries?For most people, including academics, the answer
is yes, even though few systematic attemptshave been made to measureit. In this paper an attemptis made to assess intercountryinequalityover the nineteenthand twentieth centurieson the basis of income and social welfare indicatorsfor a large sample
of Core and Peripheralcountriesfrom Europe and the New World for which data on
GDP and social indicators of welfare are available. In particular,a new, improved
HumanDevelopment index is constructedon the basis of new non-income indicators
of well-being defined along Kakwani(1993) axiomatic indices, and presentedtogether
with new estimates of purchasingpower parity adjusted GDP per head. Alternative
measuresof inequality,including entropydecomposableindices, are provided for real
income and humandevelopment.
LEANDROPRADOSDE LAESCOSURA,Universidad Carlos III, Madrid
The Evolution of Income Concentrationin Japan, 1887-2003: Evidencefrom Income
TaxStatistics
This paperpresentslong-runseries of top income sharesin Japanbetween 1887 and
1950 and of top wage income sharesbetween 1951 and 2003, using income tax statistics. Preliminaryanalysis of the data indicates that the top 1 percent wage income
share in Japan has been relatively stable over the postwar years, in contrastto the
sharpincreasein the top sharein the United States afterthe 1970s. The paperexplores
the causes of the changes in income concentrationfrom both historical and comparative perspectives.
CHIAKIMORIGUCHI,
Northwestern and NBER,
AND EMMANUEL
SAEZ, Universityof California,Berkeley
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Two Centuriesof Economic Growth:Europe Chasing theAmericanFrontier
Starting from the same level of productivityand per-capitaincome as the United
States in the mid-nineteenthcentury, Europe fell behind steadily to a level of barely
half in 1950, and then began a rapid catch-up. While Europe's level of productivity
has almost converged, its income per person has leveled off at about three-quartersof
America's. How could Europebe so productiveyet so poor? The simple answer is that
hours per person in Europehave fallen drasticallyin the past 40 years, reflecting long
vacations, high unemployment,and low labor force participation,and only about onethirdof the Europe-Americadifference reflects voluntarilychosen leisure. A historical
analysis traces Europe's falling behind after 1870 to Americanpolitical unity, fostering large-scale material-intensivemanufacturingand a set of marketinginnovations,
and after 1913 to the early Americanexploitationof the great inventions of electricity
and the internalcombustionengine, while Europewas distractedby wars. After 1950
Europe's catch up was achieved both by exploiting the great inventions40 years late,
and also by the gradualerosion of early Americanadvantages.But after 1995 the gap
began to widen again, a developmentthat brings to the forefrontfundamentalAmerican advantagesin fosteringand exploiting innovation.
ROBERTGORDON,Northwesternand NBER
SESSION 2A: GOVERNMENTPOLICYTOWARDSINNOVATION
EquilibriumImpotence: Whythe States and not the AmericanNational Government
Building a nationaltransportationsystem was a central link in the developmentof
the nineteenth-centuryAmerican economy. Despite calls for national improvements,
the federal governmentspent nearly an orderof magnitudeless on transportationprojects between 1790 and 1860 than did state and local governments.This paper develops a generalpolitical economy model of a democraticlegislaturefaced with the problem of financing a large transportationinvestment that serves a minority of the
geographic units representedin the legislature-states in the federal case. We show
that three alternativefinancing schemes can commandmajoritysupportand leave no
district worse off, and that the federal governmentwas only able to use two of three
methodsbecause of constitutionalrestrictionson taxation.We show that 97 percent of
all federal transportationexpendituresfollowed the two schemes, and that the federal
governmentmost often used a method of finance suited for small local projectsrather
than interregionalprojects.We complete the argument,by comparingthe state experience. States were able to tailor taxes to suit political constraints.As a consequence,
states built most of the largestand most importantinter-regionaltransportationlinks in
the antebellumera.
JOHNWALLIS,Maryland
ANDBARRYWEINGAST,Stanford
Antitrustand InnovationPolicy in Early Cold WarAmerica
This paper examines the influence of antitrustpolicy upon technological change in
two American industries-computing and paper, duringthe decades following World
War II. It combines detailed examinationof key antitrustprosecutionswith thorough
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case studies of firm behavior based on records in corporatearchives. The paper focuses upon both the theory and the practice of antitrust.By examining developments
in two widely divergentindustries,it attemptsto elucidatewhetherthe Departmentof
Justice acted upon a comprehensivetheoreticalunderstandingof the relationshipbetween competition,marketstructure,and technical change. The paperthen investigates
whether antitrust activities significantly altered firm behavior regarding technical
change, whether any changes in firm behavior followed paths anticipatedby the Department of Justice, and whether altered firm behavior ultimately influenced the
course of technical change in significantways.
STEVE
USSELMAN,
GeorgiaInstituteof Technology
SESSION 2B: SOCIALWELFAREIN VICTORIANBRITAIN
Poverty among the Elderly in VictorianBritain
Despite the sharp increase in wage rates for manual workers from 1850 to 1914,
poverty rates among the elderly remainedhigh in Victorian Britain, although the extent of pauperismvaried significantly across Poor Law Unions. This paperbegins by
examiningthe ability of workersto provide for their old age throughsaving and membership in friendly societies. We constructa data set consisting of informationfor all
586 English Poor Law Unions for 1891/2. We estimate regressionequationsto explain
variationsacross unions in the extent of pauperism,and test several conjecturesmade
by contemporariesand repeatedby historians.For example, what effect did the substitution of workhouses for outdoor relief have on the number of elderly paupers?We
then examine the implicationsof our results for the debate over national old-age pensions which occurredfrom the 1890s until the adoptionof the Old Age Pension Act in
1908.
GEORGEBOYER,Cornell
ANDTIMOTHYSCHMIDLE,Cornell
TheEconomicReturnto PrimarySchooling in VictorianEngland
In this paper,I use longitudinaldata on individualmales linked between the English
censuses of 1851 and 1881 to examine the effect of childhood primaryschool attendance on adult socioeconomic status in VictorianEngland.Primaryschooling was not
compulsory,nor was it state provided. Primaryeducationwas a choice made by parents for their children.The panel natureof the data allows both the schooling decision
and the effect of that decision on the individual's adult labor market outcome to be
analyzed. A structuralmodel of rational school choice indicates that parentswere responsive to the anticipatedfuture economic effect of the schooling on their children.
For individualsfrom all socioeconomic backgroundswho received primaryschooling,
the benefits were substantial.
JASON
LONG,Colby
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SESSION 3A:COLLECTIVEINSTITUTIONSAND COLLECTIVEINVENTION
Craft Guilds and Property Rights to Technical Knowledge in Premodern Europe,
c.1300-c. 1800
The role of technology in the transitionfrom premodern,"Malthusian,"to modem
economies in late eighteenth-and nineteenth-centuryEuropeis among the majorquestions in economic history, but it is still poorly understood.In particular,the view that
premodernsocieties experienced low laborproductivityand stagnantliving standards,
which suggests that technological change before c. 1800 was close to zero due to pervasive guild rent seeking and poorly specified propertyrights to knowledge is hardto
squarewith the fact that the surge of technological innovation in the eighteenth century occurredwithin institutionalframeworksnot too dissimilarto those of 1300. It is
well known that the technical knowledge of premoderncraftsmenand engineers was
largely experience-based,or experiential. However, the implications of the fact that
there were basic cognitive limitationsto how technicalknowledge could be expressed,
processed and transmittedhave yet to be examined in detail. The paper elaborateson
this point, spells out the main implicationsfor propertyrights to knowledge, and suggests that the principal, endogenous bottleneck to premoderntechnical diffusion and
innovationwas the cost of person-to-personteaching and demonstration.
S. R. EPSTEIN,
LondonSchool of Economics
Medieval GuildsRedux: ContemporaryInstitutionsfor CollectiveInvention
This essay draws on recent scholarshipconcerning the natureand function of medieval guilds. I arguethat certainfeaturesof these guilds appearin modem institutions
that furthercollective invention:patentpools, industry-widestandard-settingorganizations, informalknowledge exchange among academic scientists, and (in a more limited way) open source softwaredevelopment. In particular,guilds and modem institutions share three features: an "appropriabilitystructure"that makes it profitable for
individualentities to both develop new technologies and sharethem;reliance on group
norms, as opposed to formal legal enactments,as an enforcementmechanism; and a
balance of competition and cooperation under which group-generic information is
informationis not. Collective invention institutions
shared,but individual-proprietary
demonstratethat formal propertyrights are not the only way to foster innovationand
that mediating institutions may mitigate property-rightsbottlenecks, lessening what
has been termedthe "tragedyof the anticommons."
ROBERT
MERGES,
Universityof California,Berkeley
Patronage, Reputation,and CommonAgency Contractingin the ScientificRevolution:
TheHistorical Originsof "OpenScience" Institutions
The emergence duringthe late sixteenth and early seventeenthcenturiesof the idea
and practice of "open science" was a distinctive and vital organizationalaspect of the
Scientific Revolution. In contrastto the previously dominantethos of secrecy in the
pursuit of Nature's Secrets, a new set of norms, incentives, and organizationalstructures reinforced scientific researchers' commitments to rapid disclosure of new
knowledge. The appearanceof "cooperativerivalries" in revealing new knowledge
were a functional response to heightened asymmetricinformationproblems encoun-
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teredby the Renaissancesystem of court-patronageof the artsand sciences, createdby
the increasing practical reliance upon new mathematicaltechniques in a variety of
"contextsof application."Fragmentedpolitical authoritygave rise to relationsbetween
noble patrons and savant-clientsthat resembled the situation economists describe as
"common agency contractingin substitutes,"therebypromotingmore favorable contractterms for the agent client membersof Europe'snascent scientific communities.
PAULDAVID,Stanford
SESSION 3B: GOVERNMENTSPOLICYTOWARDSINNOVATION
CapitalDeepening in AmericanManufacturing,1850-1880
We use establishment-leveldata to study capital deepening-increases in the capital-outputratio-in Americanmanufacturingfrom 1850 to 1880. In nominalterms,the
aggregate capital-outputratio in our samples rose by 30 percent from 1850 to 1880.
Growthin real terms was considerablygreater-70 percent-because prices of capital
goods declined relative to outputprices. Cross-sectionalregressions suggest that capital deepening was especially importantin the larger firms and was positively associated with the diffusion of steam-poweredmachinery.However, even after accounting
for shifts over time in such factors, much of the capital deepening remains to be explained. Although capital deepening implies a fall in the average productof capital it
does not necessarily imply that rates of return were declining. However, we find
strong evidence that returnsdid decline. We also show that returnswere decreasingin
firm size, althoughthe data are not sufficiently informativeto tell us why it was so.
JEREMY
ATACK,Vanderbiltand NBER,
FREDBATEMAN,Georgia,
ANDROBERTMARGO,Vanderbilt and NBER
Industrializationand Urbanization:The U.S. Experience, 1820-1920
The U.S. went from an agriculturalto an industrialnation between the early nineteenth and the turn of the twentieth centuries. In the seventeenth century, manufactured goods were producedby artisansand households, or were importedfrom England. However, beginning in the early nineteenth century, manufacturedgoods were
increasingly produced in factories, especially in New England. As the century progressed, manufacturinggrew and spread to the Middle Atlantic and became concentratedin the northernregion of the United States, forming a manufacturingbelt. This
paper explores the linkages between industrializationand urbanization.Whereas early
industrializationwas associated with growth of manufacturingin ruralareas, late industrializationwas significantly correlatedwith the growth of manufacturingin urban
areas. This paper constructsdata on U.S. cities and counties for the period between
1820 and 1920 and examines the varioustheories of industrializationand urbanization.
KIM, WashingtonUniversitySt. Louis and NBER
SUKKOO
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TheIndustrialRevolutionin the Prewar Lower YangziRegion of China
This article utilizes a GDP frameworkto make an assessment of economic growth
and change in China's most advancedregion, the Lower Yangzi, from the early modem period to the present It offers a quantitativeassessment of the Shanghai-basedindustrializationin the first three decades of the twentieth century through a detailed
compilation of a 1933 Lower Yangzi GDP. It shows that the Lower Yangzi in the
1930s had a per capita GDP 64 percent higher than China's national average, and experienceda magnitudeof growthand structuralchange between 1914-1918 and 19311936 comparableto that of Japanand her East Asian colonies duringthis period. This
paper furtherprovides a historical narrativearguingthat the city-state model adopted
in early-twentieth-centuryShanghai,with its secure propertyrights and provision of
public goods, laid the institutionalfoundationof an IndustrialRevolution in the Lower
Yangzi with long-lastingpolitical and economic impactacross East Asia.
DEBINMA,National GraduateInstitutefor Policy Studies,Japan
SESSION 4A: CHALKAND TALK: SCIENCE,ACADEMIA,AND INNOVATION
Whydid U.S. Universitiesbegin Patenting and Licensing during the 1970s?
A numberof scholars have documentedthe role of the 1980 Bayh-Dole Act in the
growth of patentingand licensing by universitiessince 1980 (Hendersonet al., 1998).
But Bayh-Dole is properlyviewed as initiatingthe latest, ratherthan the first, phase in
the history of U.S. universitypatenting.Relatively few universitiesmanagedtheirpatent portfolios themselves during the 1925-1970 period, but this situation began to
change duringthe 1970s. This paperreviews the causes of increasedentryby universities into direct managementof patenting and licensing, as well as the factors underpinning the growth in private universities' role as patentersand licensors, duringthe
1970s. We draw on a databaseon university patents covering the 1948-80 period, as
well as data on "InstitutionalPatent Agreements"between universities and federal
agencies responsible for the bulk of academic researchfunding, in an analysis of the
determinantsof entryand the "governance"of licensing underthe termsof IPAs.
DAVIDMOWREY,
Universityof California,Berkeley
ANDBHAVEN
SAMPAT,
GeorgiaInstituteof Technology
Academic Science and the GrowthofIndustrial Research
This paper argues that the unique form taken by American universities in the late
nineteenthand early twentieth centurieshelped promotethe adoptionof industrialresearch laboratoriesin nearby firms. Proximity to academic science reduced the costs
faced by firms establishing research labs-by easing communicationwith academic
consultantsand facilitatingthe hiring of university-trainedscientists-and as a result
the early industrialresearch laboratoriesbenefited by locating close to universities.
This paper explores the link between the blossoming of American higher education
and the growth of industrialresearch,taking a two-prongedapproachto the research
question.First, it tests whetherthe early industrialresearchlabs were more likely to be
located near universities. It finds that the number of industrial research labs in a
county in a given year is significantlyrelatedto the numberof universitiesand the ex-
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tent of university spending on research.However, for a firm-level subsampleconsisting of firms in the chemical industry,proximityto academic science is found to matter
only for young firms. Industrialresearchlaboratoriesestablishedbefore the expansion
of higher education in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are not more
likely to be found nearuniversities.Secondly, the papertests for evidence of spillovers
arisingfrom universityresearch.
MEGAN
MACGARVIE,
BU
TheEvolutionof Biological Resource Centers
Biological resourcecenters (BRCs) are "living libraries"that authenticate,preserve,
and offer independent access to biological materials, such as cells, cultures, and
specimens. This paper explores the role that such institutionsplayed within the life
sciences over the last century.The history of biomaterialsexchange highlightsthe key
challenges in ensuringthe integrity of the researchprocess and the role of collective
institutionsin addressingthose challenges. Understandinghow institutionsimpact the
degree of confidence in research materials and the implications for overall research
productivityrequires a paradigmfor assessing the role of institutions in cumulative
progress.From the perspective of the economics of science and technological change,
BRCs offer an importantcase study of the importanceand requirementsfor step-bystep scientific and technologicalprogress,and the impact of institutionson the process
of cumulativeknowledge production.
SCOTTSTERN,Northwesternand NBER
SESSION 4B: THE THREEDONS: THE VIEW FROM THE SPIRESOF OXFORD
Labor Productivityin ArableAgriculturearound the World,1700-1870
We introducea large, new data set on agriculturaloutput and employment in the
wheat-producingareas of the world between 1700 and 1870. Using these data,we present new estimatesof laborproductivityin arableagriculturearoundthe world. Output
per worker varied wildly across countries, with Western Europe and North America
generally having substantiallyhigher outputper workerthan India and China. Most of
the variationin outputper workerwithin WesternEuropeand North Americawas due
to variations in output per acre (i.e., acres per worker were similar across western
countries). But the labor productivitydifferentialbetween North America and Europe
on the one hand, and India and China on the other,was a result of a massive differential in acresper worker.
LIAMBRUNT,Oxford
The Nitrogen Hypothesis and the English Agricultural Revolution: A Biological
Approach
This paper uses a science-based model of nitrogen in agricultureto gauge the contributionsof animal manure,peas, beans, clover, and convertible husbandryto crop
yields from 1300 to 1800. Medieval yields were not depressedby a deficiency of animals in so far as they recycled nitrogen on the arable. The cultivationof peas, beans,
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and clover introducedenough nitrogen into farmingto account for half of the rise in
crop yields, while convertible husbandrycould explain even more. Convertiblehusbandry was importantin raising yields in the sixteenth century, but its advantage
waned as the cultivationof legumes spreadin the seventeenth. Changes in population
explain why these improvementswere not adoptedin the middle ages but laterbecame
profitable.
ROBERT
ALLEN,Nuffield College
TheNorthAtlanticMeat Tradeand its InstitutionalConsequences
Expansion of the internationalgrain markethas been extensively studied, but the
trade in meat and meat animals is relatively poorly explored. This is all the more surprising because by the eve of the First World War, it was of nearly comparablevalue
to the graintrade.The meat tradebore considerableresemblanceto the grain trade,but
differences are at least as striking. Lower transportationcosts and increased demand
drove the developmentsas they did in grain. However, the impact of new technology
cannot be simply summarizedin terms of much lower freight rates. Long distance
trade in meat inexorablyaltered conditions of meat supply and was tied to the evolution of new wholesale and retaildistributionof fresh meat. Majorchanges in industrial
organizationemerged.With the new distributioncame largerfirms and greatervertical
integrationin both meat distributionand in transportation.In meatpackingand distribution, Americanfirms emergeddominantin both exportingand importingregions. In
ocean shipping,liner companiestransportedthe cattle and meat.
KNICK HARLEY, Oxford
SESSION 5A:FIRMSAND INVENTORSIN THE NINETEENTHAND
TWENTIETHCENTURIES
TheDecline of the IndependentInventor:A SchumpeterianStory?
Joseph Schumpeterarguedin Capitalism,Socialism and Democracy that the rise of
large firms' investments in in-house R&D spelled the doom of the entrepreneur.We
explore this idea by analyzing the career patternsof three cohorts of inventors from
the late nineteenthand early twentieth century.We find that over time highly productive inventors were increasingly likely to form long-term attachmentswith firms. In
the Northeast,these attachmentsseem to have takenthe form of employmentpositions
within large firms,but in the Midwest inventorswere more likely to become principals
in firms bearing their names. Entrepreneurship,therefore,was by no means dead, but
the increasing capital requirements-both financial and human-for effective invention and the need for inventorsto establish a reputationbefore they could attractsupport made it more difficult for creativepeople to pursuecareersas inventors.The relative numbers of highly productive inventors in the population correspondingly
decreased,as did patentingratesper capita.
NAOMI LAMOREAUX, University of California, Los Angeles and NBER
AND KENNETH SOKOLOFF, University of California, Los Angeles and NBER
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Patents and Technological Competencies: A Cross National Study of Intellectual
PropertyRight Strategies in the SyntheticDye Industry,185 7-1914
The dramaticincrease of firm patentingin the United States duringthe last two decades may give the impressionthat the acquisitionof patents is becoming increasingly
importantfor protectingand leveraging technological competencies. A historical perspective on how firms acquire technological competencies and leverage them in different marketsreveals, however, that it is far from obvious that the possession of patents will lead to long-tern competitive success. Germanand Swiss firms in the early
years of the synthetic dye industrycreated superiortechnological competencies than
their British and French counterpartsprecisely because they were initially unable to
obtainpatentmonopolies in theirhome markets.Analyzing the history of the synthetic
dye industryfrom 1857-1914 in a variety if countries,the purpose of this paper is to
contributeto a more nuancedunderstandingof the role of patents in the development
of firm capabilities.
JOHANNPETERMURMANN,Northwestern
Technology, Investment, Finance and Performance in the Second Industrial
Revolution
In recent researchon the relationshipbetween finance and growth, there has been
growing attentionto heterogeneityacross industriesin their dependenceon the financial system and the benefits that they derive from it. Various hypotheses have been
advanced about the financial demands of different industriesand their determinants.
However, a dearthof evidence on the patternsof finance across industriesand theirrelationship to technology, investment, and performancehas hamperedprogress on the
topic. My paper will analyze the role of finance in three prominentindustriesin the
United States-electrical equipment,chemicals, and automobiles-for the period from
1890 to 1929. All three of these industriesplayed a prominentrole in the Second Industrial Revolution. During the period covered by my study, they experienced high
levels of technological change and innovation, an increase in their capital requirements and a rapidgrowth in their output.Company-leveldatawill be used as the basis
for a quantitativeanalysis of investment,finance, and performancein these industries.
It will be complementedwith qualitative discussions of technological change, competitive structureand organizationalcharacteristicsin these industries.
MARYO'SULLIVAN,INSEAD
SESSION 5B:FINANCIALMARKETSAND INSTITUTIONS
Related Lendingand EconomicPerformance:Evidencefrom Mexico
There is a broadconsensus thatbankersin LDCs engage in related(insider)lending.
There is not, however, a consensus as to whether related lending has a positive or
negative effect on economic growth. We argue that related lending has negative consequences for growth comparedto the outcome that would obtain in an efficient capital marketbecause bankers choose borrowersbased on personal contacts ratherthan
the quality of the underlyingprojects. The result is the misallocation of capital. We
also argue that related lending arises as a rationalresponse to high levels of default
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risk. Thus, it is an endogenous outcome of weak propertyrights or informationasymmetries that are costly to overcome. In sum, relatedlending is a second-best outcome,
but it is superiorto the readily available alternative:banking systems that effectively
do not lend at all for productivepurposes.
ITAM
NOELMAURER,
ANDSTEPHEN
HABER,Stanford
TheDevelopmentof the Paris Bourse in the InterwarPeriod
In this paper,we present a new databaseon the FrenchBourse duringthe interwar
period, which should enable a much more thoroughresearchon the functioning and
development process of that market. This database includes for every listed security
monthly prices, earnings,splits, and other capital operations,issues, and, most importantly, a measureof liquidity.Using this database,we first present a few stylized facts
on the developmentof the Parisiancapital marketduringthe interwarperiod. We discuss the limitationsof earlier indices and build a new stock index which, being better
constructedand restrictedto blue chip firms, is more easily comparableto foreign indices of the same period. This new index modifies the standardview of the Paris market in the interwarperiod, showing for example that the price growth was higher than
previously thoughtduringthe 1920s and thatthe decline in the stock prices startedearlier than in New York.
PIERRE-CYRILLE
ENS, Paris
HAUTCOEUR,
ANDMURIEL
Lille, ESA
PETIT-KONCZYK,
ContractualResponses to InstitutionalChanges. A Historical InstitutionalAnalysis
This paperuses historicalrecordsand economic theory to investigate the combined
institutionaland contractualarrangementsthat facilitated long-distance trade in late
medieval Venice. Institutionalchanges that enhanced the State's ability to verify informationled the transitionfrom the sea loan (a debt-like contract)to the commenda
(an equity-like contract)and enabled a betterallocation of risk. These institutionaldevelopments also lessened the merchants'opportunitiesto influence the ventures' outcome throughtheir choice of action/effort,thereby mitigatingmoral hazardproblems
with respect to projectchoice and effort. The Venetians, insteadof designing contracts
to economize on agency costs, developed betterinstitutionalarrangements.
DELARA,Alicante
GONZALEZ
YADIRA
PLENARY SESSION 6: ENDOGENOUSGROWTH,SCIENCE,AND ECONOMIC
HISTORY
GrowthTheory,EconomicHistory, and the Arc of Science
We achieve our most complete understandingof any phenomenon when our conversations follow an arced trajectorythat starts from a specific context, moves up to
higher levels of abstraction,and then returnsback to a (possibly different) specific
context. Economic theorists in general, and growth theorists in particular,focus much
of their energy on the ascending portion of the arc. They are skilled at strippingthe
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context from a conversationand translatingit into the abstractlanguage of mathematics. But the real test of their efforts comes in the returnback down to the kind of context that economic historiansexamine, contexts in which countries,firms, sometimes
even people, have names. Examples drawnfrom economics and other disciplines suggest that a good indicatorof a successful returnis a change in how we use naturallanguage. In the end, new words and phrases or sharpenedunderstandingsof existing
ones may be some of our most importantresearchoutputs.
PAULROMER,Stanford
Endogenous Changes in 20th CenturyAmerica
NATHANROSENBERG,
Stanford
SESSION 7A:INSTITUTIONSAND NATURAL RESOURCESIN THE
AMERICANWEST
TransactionCosts and Resistance to WaterRights Transfers:TheLegacy and Lessons
of the Owens ValleyTransferto Los Angeles
The completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct from Owens Valley in 1917 brought
an importantnew source of water to the city. Indeed, with Owens Valley water, Los
Angeles grew from 250,000 people in 1905 to over 2,000,000 in 1930. Today, Owens
Valley water accounts for approximately60 percent of Los Angeles's water. The water transferwas the first, one of the largest, and the most controversialrural-to-urban
water transferin the United States. Because it is presented as all that can go wrong
with water transfers,it figures prominentlyand negatively in all efforts to promote a
re-allocationof water in the semi-arid West today. This paper examines the transfer
process and negotiationsbetween the city and land owners in the Owens Valley. Between 1905 and 1935 Los Angeles purchasedvirtuallyall of the privatepropertyin the
valley. It would seem that because Los Angeles purchasedthe land and internalized
the externalitiesinvolved, the episode should have been a success story instead of one
that complicates currenttransferefforts. Instead, the negotiations were acrimonious,
and periodicallyviolence eruptedleading to dynamitingof partof the Los Angeles aqueduct, one of the country's largest public works projects up to that time. This paper
examines the sources of the disputes over price and why they were so difficult to resolve. It also presentsthe likely economic history of agriculturein the valley had irrigation continued to evaluate the often-claimed assertion that the water transfer destroyeda vibrantagriculturaleconomy, leaving instead,a desert.
GARYLIBECAP,
Arizona and NBER
The Evolution of Irrigation Institutionsin California: The Rise of the Irrigation District, 1910-1930
This paper addresses the phenomenonof the dramaticdecline of private irrigation
institutionsand the correspondingrise of public irrigationinstitutionsin early twentieth-centuryCalifornia.The existing literaturepresentsexplanationsof this transformation that view public irrigationorganizationseither as solutions to marketfailure or
primarilyas a mechanism for the redistributionof income. An alternativeexplanation
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is set forth in this paper. This explanationmaintainsthat the rise of the public irrigation districtwas the result of a complex interactionof agricultural,regulatory,and legal changes during the early years of the twentieth century. As large farm holdings
were increasinglysubdividedand sold duringthe nineteenthand early twentiethcenturies, and the with impositionof water rateregulationin 1912 and the growing political
influence of water users, it became increasinglydifficult for private irrigationcompanies (which were commonlyjoint land-waterdevelopmententerprisesthat relied upon
land sales, not water sales, to turn a profit) to capturea sufficient share of the benefits
of new, large-scaleirrigationprojectsto make them privatelyprofitable.The rising social rates of returnon irrigationinvestmentafter 1910, coupled with the failure of private water companies to realize these gains, led to a demandfor organizationswhich
could appropriatethese benefits. This in turn led to key legislation in 1911 and 1913
which greatly enhancedthe organizationaladvantagesof the public irrigationdistrict.
Primarydata collected from irrigationdistrictsand contemporarynewspapers,as well
as data from publishedstate and federal sources, provide supportfor this hypothesis.
EDWARD
McDEVITT,CaliforniaState, Northridge
Why WouldOrder WithoutLaw Result in First Possession? WaterRights During the
CaliforniaGold Rush
Economists and legal scholars have long been intriguedby the question of why orderly resourceallocationoften occurs in the absence of formallaws that define and enforce propertyrights, a phenomenondubbedOrderWithoutLaw by RobertEllickson.
Ellicksom debunksthe persistentmisconceptionthat formal law is all that mattersbut
contains few specific predictionsregardingthe propertyrights arrangementslikely to
emerge from a situation lacking formal laws. This paper examines the emergence of
the legal principle of first possession fromjust such a situation:the mining camps of
the early California Gold Rush. Despite the absence of formal controlling law, the
mining camps set in place orderlyproceduresfor acquiring,maintaining,and alienating water rights, but varied dramaticallyin their reliance on first possession. This fact
permits us to gain insights into the factors that influence the adoption of first possession by private agents under democraticconditions essentially unconstrainedby controlling legal precepts.
MARKKANAZAWA, CarletonCollege
SESSION 7B: THE STARBUCKSESSION:SAILING,WHALINGAND
STEAMSHIPS
Wasthe Shiftfrom Sail to Steam in Ocean Shipping,1860 to 1912, Skill-Biased?
This paper examines the extent of skill bias associated with the shift from sail to
steam technology in ocean shipping between 1860 and 1912. It employs a data set of
merchantseamen crew agreementsto compare occupationaldistributionsand wages
between skilled and unskilled workers on sail versus steam crews over this period. It
also estimates the wage premium to literacy and the age-wage profile for merchant
seamen underboth technologies. Many contemporaryaccountssuggested that the shift
from sail to steam technology was deskilling and resultedin a general deteriorationof
seamanship.In contrast,the results here suggest by some measuresthat the shift from
sail to steam was skill-biased although this result depends on how skill bias is meas-
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ured. The study thus documents a significant late-nineteenth-centuryepisode of the
changingrelationshipbetween technology and skills.
DAVID MITCH,Maryland
Incentives and Productivity in Corporations:Evidence from the American Whaling
Industry
The use of incorporation contributed to the development of many nineteenthcentury industries,but whaling was not one of them. Of the whaling venturesthat received corporatechartersin the 1830s, none survived for more than nine years, at a
time when unincorporatedwhaling venturesenjoyed growing success. This paper analyzes the historical origins of the contractsand organizationalforms employed in the
American whaling industry, and examines their development in response to moral
hazardproblems.Most whaling ventureswere owned by a small numberof investors,
and were configuredto providepowerful incentives. The corporateform of ownership,
as implementedin the 1830s, was incapable of providing the incentives requisite for
success in whaling. The analysis of a newly collected panel of more than 800 whaling
voyages from 17 differentports supportsthe main conclusions of the paper.
ERICHILT, Wellesley
SteamshipCompetitionand NineteenthCenturyImmigration
The behavior of the major transatlanticpassenger steamship companies is investigated during the third quarterof the nineteenth century. This time period saw the
steamshipreplacethe sailing ship, a large decline and then large increase in immigrant
volume, rapid changes in the technology of the steamship, and, in contrast to later
years, competition among the various companies. Data on each passenger steamship
arrivingat New York City are gatheredfrom the U.S. PassengerLists for every third
year beginning in 1852 and continuingthrough1876 (thus, for nine differentyears). In
sum, the data set contains informationon 2,864 voyages undertakenby 306 ships operated by 36 different companies. The paper presents empirical informationon the
market shares of the major companies, investigates the reasons for the changing
shares,and examines the competitivebehaviorof the steamshipcompaniesand market
in a variety of ways.
RAYMOND COHN,Illinois State
SESSION 8A:THE SPREAD OF INNOVATIONS:DIFFUSIONAND
RESISTANCE
TheDiffusion of the SteamEngine in Eighteenth-CenturyBritain
In this paper we concentrateon the diffusion of steam technology across British
counties during the eighteenth century. Following a ratherestablished approachfor
analyzing the diffusion of new technologies, we fit logistic growth functions to the
data on the numbersof steam engines erected in each county. Afterwards,in orderto
assess the factors influencing the diffiusionof steam power technology, we estimate
"adoptionequations"relatingthe numberof steam engines erected in each county with
a numberof localizationfactors such as coal prices, availabilityof water sites, number
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of textile mills and number of blast furnaces. In this way, we are able to provide a
thoroughreconstructionof regional variationsin the timing, pace and extent of usage
of steam engines. Our analysis sheds some new light on the differentadoptionpatterns
characterizingthe diffusion of Newcomen and Watt engines.
Eindhoven Universityof Technology,
ALESSANDRO
NUVOLARI,
B. VERSPAGEN,
EindhovenUniversityof Technology,
Sussex
ANDN. VONTUNZELMANN,
Farmer Resistance to the Tuberculin-TestingProgram to Eradicate Bovine Tuberculosis in the UnitedStates, 1893-1941
A recurrenttheme in the economic and technological history literaturesis the importance of active opposition to technical change. This paper examines the concrete
example of widespread farmerresistance during the early twentieth century to government-ledcampaignsto use new tuberculin-testingtechnologies to eradicatebovine
tuberculosisin the United States. Drawing on newspapersources and the archivalrecords of the Bureauof Animal Industry,we explore four issues: the political economy
of opposition;the role of earlierscientific controversiesin the discourseof the opposition movement; the techniques including radio and litigation used by the opponents;
and finally internationalcomparisons.
ALAN OLMSTEAD,Universityof California,Davis
ANDPAULRHODE,
Universityof North Carolinaand NBER
Diffusion of the Cotton-PickingMachine, 1949-1964
Within a 20-year period after 1949, mechanical cotton harvesting in the United
States replacedwhat for centurieshad been a hand operation.This innovation,perhaps
even more than others in American agriculturehad enormousimplicationsfor the society into which it was introduced,includingthe disappearanceof the South as a separate region in the United States, the Civil Rights movement, the rural-urbanmigration
of African-Americans,racial economic equality, and the demise of America's cities.
Despite recent progress in understandingthe labor marketdynamics involved, the diffusion of the mechanical cotton picker itself remains incompletely understood,especially its striking west-to-east pattern.Here with newly constructedhand-to-machine
harvest cost data, we estimate the diffusion of the mechanicalcotton harvesterwith a
two equationmodel. We find diffusion resulted from the rapid decline in the costs of
mechanical cotton harvesting due to local (cotton yields) and exogenous improvements in technology (productivitygains in manufacturingand distributionexogenous
to the mechanizationof the cotton harvestitself).
WAYNEGROVE,
LeMoyneCollege
Baldwin-WallaceCollege
ANDCRAIG
HEINICKE,
SESSION 8B:PRODUCTIVITYIN EUROPEAND THE UNITED STATES
InterwarMultifactorProductivityGrowthin the UnitedStates
Multifactor productivity growth in the private nonfarm economy in the United
States was 2.12 percent per year (continuouslycompounded)between 1919 and 1929
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and 2.31 percent per year between 1929 and 1941. In both periods MFP growth in
manufacturingwas exceptional: 5.12 percent (1919-1929) falling to 2.91 percent between 1929 and 1941. If MFP growth in manufacturingwas lower, how did the 19291941 years end up yielding a higher rate of MFP growth than did the 1920s? The answer appearsto lie in a very high rate of MFP growth in transportand public utilities
(4.67 percentper year), combinedwith moderategrowth in wholesale and retail distribution, which preliminaryestimates place at about 1.81 percentper year. In comparison, I estimate MFP growth in transportand public utilities at only 1.86 percent per
year between 1919-1929, and wholesale and retail distribution,at only about 0.8 percent per year.
ALEXFIELD,Santa Clara
TFP, Social Savings and the ConsumerSurplusof the Film Industry,1900-1938
This paper estimates and comparesthe benefits cinema technology generatedto society in Britain, France, and the United States between 1900 and 1938. It is shown
how cinema industrialized live entertainment,by standardization,automation, and
making it tradable.The economic impact is measuredin three ways: TFP-growth,social savings in 1938 and the consumer surplus enjoyed in 1938. Preliminaryfindings
suggest that the entertainmentindustry accounted for 1.5 to 1.7 percent of national
TFP-growthand for 0.9 to 1.6 percent of real GDP-growthin the three countries. Social savings were highest in the United States (c. 2.5 billion dollars and three million
workers) and relatively modest in Britain and France,possibly because of the relative
abundanceof skilled live-entertainmentworkers. Convergingexchange rates and PPP
price ratios suggest rapid internationalmarket integration.The paper's methodology
and findings may give insight in technological change in other service industriesthat
were also industrialized.
GERBENBAKKER,Essex
BenchmarkEstimatesof UK/USSectoral Productivity,1870-1950
Two competing views of relative UK/US labor productivity since 1870 have recently emerged in the literature.Ward and Devereux (2003) provide expenditurebased benchmarkcomparisonsof UK/US productivity.Broadberry(1997, 1998) provides productivitycomparisonsbased on UK/US sectoral output. Whereas the Ward
and Devereux comparisons are based on a direct comparisonof prices and expenditures in each benchmarkyear, Broadberry's(1997, 1998) comparisonsare to a large
extent derived from time series extrapolations. The direct comparisons show the
United States leading the United Kingdom as early as 1870 but the sectoral comparisons suggest that the United States does not pass the United Kingdomuntil the turnof
the twentiethcentury.In this paper,we reconcile the evidence on UK/US sectoralproductivitywith the direct, expenditurebased estimatesof overall productivity.
MARIANNE
WARD, Loyola College, MD
ANDJOHNDEVEREUX,CUNY
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Abstractsof Posters Presented at the Annual
Meeting
Risk Sharing, Adverse Selection, and Institutional Change: The Case of the Israeli
Kibbutz
The Israeli Kibbutz, a voluntary egalitariancommune, presents a puzzle for economic theory as moralhazardand adverseselection might take place. Yet, the Kibbutz
has existed for almost a century,implying that these problemswere mitigated.I delve
into the factorsat the center of the Kibbutzlong success and recent change by providing a theoretical frameworkand by assembling and analyzing large micro-level data
sets, both at the individual level and the Kibbutz level. The analysis suggests that although productivemembersare the first to leave, the Kibbutz is a self-enforcing institutionprovidingvaluablerisk sharingand public goods.
Northwestern University
RAN ABRAMITZKY,
The Impact of Subsidized Family Planning on the Fertility of African-American
Women,1960-1990
Demographic surveys in the 1960s revealed far higher rates of "unplanned"births
among African-Americanwomen thanwhite women. Following the enactmentof Title
X of the Public Health Service Act in 1970, the first comprehensivefederal initiative
to subsidize family planning,fertility rates among black women fell rapidly.Using archival and published data, this poster analyzes the impact of subsidized family planning services on racial differences in fertility. It is demonstratedthat within states and
cohorts declines in births among African-Americanwomen relative to white women
from 1970 to 1990 are stronglyrelatedto higher levels of service in 1970. Futurework
will examine the effects of family planningusing richercounty-level data.
MARTHA
BAILEY,VanderbiltUniversity
WhiteFlight, or the Rush to the Suburbs" Disentangling the Relationship Between
Black In-Migrationand WhiteSuburbanization
American cities underwenta rapid and racially distinctive process of suburbanization following World War II. However, this enduringpatternof "chocolate cities and
vanilla suburbs"need not imply the existence of a direct racial dynamic in residential
decision ("white flight"). Variation in racial composition across cities is largely the
byproductof a series of location choices made by ruralblack migrants.Migrantsmay
have been attractedby exactly those aspects of a city that underlie the demand for
suburbanliving (e.g., wage growth, industrialmix), or by falling demand, and thus
lower prices, for central city housing accompanyingthe "rushto the suburbs."This
paper will re-examine the relationship between race and suburbanizationwith an
original instrumentfor black migrant flows into northernand western cities. The instrumentpredictsin-migrationto a particularnortherncity based on southernpush factors, weighted by the state-of-birthprofile of the city's existing black migrantstock.
LEAHPLATTBOUSTAN,Harvard University
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567
Industryand Ingenuityin Dixie: FactorsAffectingthe PostbellumSouthernEconomy?
Persistentwidespreadpoverty in the postbellum South remains a mystery. Scholars
have offered a varietyof hypothesesto explainthis phenomenon:emancipation,the legacy of slavery, institutionsand land tenure,labormarketintegrationor lack thereof,racism, insufficientspendingon education,capitalmarketimperfections,culturalinstitutions, the impactof the WarBetween the States,Reconstruction,cotton overproduction,
agrarianmentalities,and a lack of "inventive"activity.This posterwill presentresultsof
preliminaryinvestigationin which I evaluatethese hypothesesand ascertainthe contribution each factormade to poor southerneconomic performance.In addition,I explicitly test the hypothesisthat southernershad "backward,anti-capitalist"mentalitiesusing
stochasticfrontiertechniquessummarizedin Coelli, Rao, and Battese (1998, An Introductionto Efficiencyand ProductivityAnalysis),the theoreticalframeworkdiscussedin
Mokyr(1990, TheLevel of Riches ), and the dataset summarizedin Atack and Bateman
(1999, Historical Methods).Preliminaryresults indicatethat southernfirms were as efficient as theirnortherncounterpartsrecordedin the 1880 Censusof Manufactures.
ART CARDEN,WashingtonUniversityin Saint Louis
History of China's OverseasInvestments:Emphasis on the OpportunitiesProvided by
its Entryto the WTO
China's accession to the WTO marks its entry to the world. This has definitely
boosted its economic growth.It has even led to more contactbetween Chinaand WTO
members and other countries. It was the new economic situation that actuatedChina
overseas capital expanded from trade, shipping, and the restaurantbusiness to manufacturingand processing, resource exploitation,project contracting,agriculturalcooperation,and researchand development.Chinais in transitionfrom lower-level (mainly
international)trade toward higher-level (direct investment in productionand production requisites)trade.It practicesthe strategyof "foreigncapital inflow" and "domestic capital outflow"throughdeveloping foreign tradeand attractingforeign capitaland
operating external direct investments and having active involvement in the global
economy. It is now workinghardto steady its economic growth and improveits industry structureto merge into the global economic course. Related to this strategicdevelopment,a history of China's overseas investmentsis discussed.
PEILIN
DENG,SouthwestJiao Tong University
A Co-evolutionaryApproach to Institutionaland Technological Change in Industrial
Regimes:Labor and Managementin the UnitedStates and Germany,1900-1933
A growing literaturestresses the divergences between national "Varietiesof Capitalism." This poster argues that these developed because technologies, organizational
arrangements,institutions,and routines of behaviorin an industryor region co-evolve
with each other.New technologies or routinesmay act as factors changing the conditions for the replications of others. Well adjusted systems-"regimes"-emerge, as
firms choose those routines and technologies that work best in their given environment. Regimes may exist concurrentlyand compete. Over time the most effective become prevalentin an industryor region and ultimately shape social ideologies and institutionson a nationalscale.
Simon HELLMICH,UniversitatBielefeld
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EHAPosters
The UnexpectedTransformationof Women's Higher Education, 1965 to 1980
The dissertationaims to explain the rapid and unexpectednarrowingof the gender
gap in higher educationthat took place between 1965 and 1980. It offers an explanation, based on a theory of social change developed by Timor Kuran,of why we might
expect to see sudden shifts in women's economic roles ratherthan gradualadaptation
to economic changes. Social norms, it is argued,played a key role in shapingwomen's
choices regardingeducation and work. The dissertationalso investigates empirically
the labormarketconsequencesof changes in women's highereducation.
STACEYJONES,Stanford University
AnalyzingVariationsin TotalFactor Productivityby Meansof CointegrationAnalysis
The aim of this paper is to analyze the determinantsfor variations in total factor
productivity (TFP) in three different types of industries: labor-intensive, capitalintensive, and knowledge-intensive industries in Sweden from 1950-1994. Testing
eight differenthypotheses by means of the cointegratedVAR model is used to carry
this out. Each hypothesis reflects a certaingrowth process with mechanismsviolating
perfect competition and/or constant returnsto scale under which TFP is computed.
The results pint out that 86 to 90 percent of TFP variationscan be explained by such
growth processes, moreover the determinantsfor TFP differ between industrieswith
different methods of production:e.g., learning-by-doingand negative sector shocks
are the most importantdeterminantsfor TFP variations in labor-intensiveindustry,
whereas in capital-intensiveindustryTFP is determinedby economies and diseconomies of scale. In knowledge-intensive sectors complementaritybetween subjective
knowledge and capital and reversedcomplementaritiesdue to path dependencygreatly
affect variationsin TFP.
CAMILLAJOSEPHSON,
Lund University
Measurementand Analysis of ProductDiversification
Technology sets the boundaryof what to produce and how to produce for firms. It
determines firms' flexibility to adjust themselves over time. Unlike how to produce
(productionprocess with many inputs and adjustmentmargins, such as labor, capital,
material,and capacity),what to produce(product)has never been studiedas one of the
adjustmentmargins. The annualdiversificationindex is constructedin this paper,using Census Bureaufirm/plant-leveldata. Preliminarywork shows that the diversification index 1) increased at the firm level but decreased at the plant level, 2) procyclically fluctuated,and 3) has different trends by size and industryduring the last
three decades in the United States.
KIM, Universityof Marylandand the WorldBank
NAMSUK
Strengthening Intellectual Property Rights: Experience from the 1986 Taiwanese
Patent Reforms
Intellectualpropertyrights (IPR) have recently moved to the forefrontof debates
over internationalpolicy. As each countryestablishes its own institutionsof IPR, a divergence exists between net producersand net consumersin the returnsto providing
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EHA Posters
569
strongprotection.Underpressurefromthe developedworld,many developingcountries
have begun to strengthentheir IPR, particularlyas regardsto patents.These changes in
policy provide us with an opportunityto learn more about the effects of intellectual
propertyinstitutionsin developing countries.Whetherand to what extent do stronger
IPR spurinventiveactivity in a developingcountry?Whatare the factorsor characteristics of industriesin which strengtheningpatentrights ha the most favorableimpact on
inventive activity? Will the strengtheningof IPR in developing countriesinduce more
foreign directinvestmentand technologytransferfrom abroad?In an attemptto answer
these questions,this paperuses the 1986 Taiwanesepatentreformsto examine the impact of strengtheningpatentrights in a developing economy. The evidence on the number of patentsawardedto Taiwaneseinventorsas well as that on R&D spendingin Taiwan suggest that the reforms stimulated additional inventive activity, especially in
industrieswhere patentprotectionis generallyregardedas an effective strategyfor extractingreturnsand in industriesthatare more R&D intensive.The reformsalso seemed
to induce additionalforeign directinvestmentin Taiwan. On the otherhand, for industries that chiefly use othermechanismsto extractreturnsfrom their innovation,such as
secrecy, the strengtheningof patent rights had little effect on their inventive activity.
Neither investmentin R&D nor the numberof patents awardedin these industriesappearedto be much affectedby the strengtheningof patentprotection.
SHIH-TSELo, Universityof California,Los Angeles
Economic Development and Classical Music: A Case Study of Complex Technology
Transfer
New musical works and styles are the outcome of deliberativeresearchand significant experimentationand so composition is akin to "invention."The project takes
grandopera as a case study of a complex technology, embodied in composersand musicians. This informsthe migrationof composers,establishmentof conservatories,and
role of extra-marketsupport-most effectively provided at first in princely states. The
project examines the relationship between composition rates, national income and
state regime, building on their neighborsin music by importingmusicians, and institutional models. Contemporarycomposition rates imply that convergence has occurred
in Europe.
SIOBHANMCANDREW,
Nuffield College, OxfordUniversity
Land Re-allotmentsan the RussianPeasant Communein the Late ImperialPeriod
This project investigates the causes and implicationsof communalre-allotmentsof
plots among membersof open-field communitiesin late ImperialEuropeanRussia. As
partof a largerprojecton the developmentof Russia's ruraleconomy after serfdom, it
utilizes descriptions of land communes from archival sources and a data set on reallotmentsin Moscow province to explore the determinantsof the practice and implications for agriculturalproductivity. The evidence suggests that external seignorial
and state obligations and local economic conditions impacted the decision to re-allot
plots, while demographicfactorswere uncorrelatedwith the practice.No evidence that
re-allotmentshamperedagriculturalproductivityis found.
STEVEN
Yale University
NAFZIGER,
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EHAPosters
EndogenousEntry and Competitionin the Retail MarketsDuring the Early Twentieth
Century
This paper examines the endogenous numberof retail establishmentsacross a wide
variety of segments and marketsin orderto determinethe natureof competitionin the
retail industryduringthe early twentieth century.The analysis uses data from the first
census of Retail Distributionin a discrete dependentvariable model to estimate the
underlyingprofit function of nearly a dozen differentretail segments. Special attention
is given to how the spreadof the automobile,changes in female labor force participation, and the geographic size of a city affected in turn the value of the services provided by retailers, equilibriumstore counts, and entry thresholds.Evidence suggests
variationin these factorsplayed a significant role in the competitive structureof retail
markets. In particular,more extensive automobile ownership is associated with a reduction in the value of retail services and consequently larger entry thresholdswith
fewer storesper capita.
TODDC. NEWMANN,University ofArizona
UnderstandingWomenas TransitionalEconomicAgents in Early ModernSpain
Spanish women witnessed immense political, social, and economic change during
the period from 1580 to 1620. The empire transitionedfrom the most powerful Spanish king ever, Philip II, to his less-than-impressiveson, Philip III. The Spanish economy's expansion of the sixteenth century gave way to a minor crises during the first
quartof the seventeenthcentury.All the while, the Spanishpeople struggledto understand and manipulatean empire in full maturity.My poster summarizesa chapterof
my dissertationand evaluates the ways in which women in the centralSpanish city of
Valladolid experienced the ebbs and flows of the Spanish economy. Using over 200
court cases drawnfrom municipal,university,and appellatecourts in Valladolid, I argue that women played a central role in providing an urban economy capable of
weatheringsignificantdemographicchanges. I show that as transitionaland formative
economic agents, Spanish women contributedto the efficient allocation of resources,
thereby benefiting the larger imperial economy. Their contributionis rooted in Spanish law, which honors women's propertyrights. I suggest that women's roles as economic agents may explain the durabilityof the Spanish empire despite serious economic and political problems.
DAVID(JACK)NORTON,University of Minnesota
Slavery,InstitutionalDevelopments,and Long-RunGrowthin Africa, 1400-2000
Can Africa's currentstate of under-developmentbe partiallyattributedto the large
trade in slaves that occurredduring the Atlantic, Sahara,Red Sea, and Indian Ocean
slave trades?Qualitativeevidence from the African history literaturesuggests that the
answer to this may be yes. This poster attemptsto answer this question empirically.
Using data from historicalrecordsthat reportslave ethnicities,an estimate of the total
numberof slaves taken from each country in Africa between 1400 and 1913 is constructed.An importantfinding is that the number of slaves exported from a country
was an importantdeterminantof economic performancein the second half of the
twentiethcentury.
NATHAN NUNN,
Universityof Toronto
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EHAPosters
571
Industrial Demographics and Productivity Growth in Indonesian Manufacturing,
1975-1995
Indonesian economic history suggests the existence of plant size duality in manufacturing,with few dominantlarge companies, and a large number of small and medium enterprises.Exploiting manufacturingplant-level panel data (1975-1995), this
poster used plant heterogeneityand demographyto explain slow productivitygrowth.
It decomposes Total Factor Productivitygrowth in to intraplantTFP growth, market
share reallocation among incumbents, and plant-turnovereffect. Both market share
reallocationfrom low to high productivitygrowth plants, and the process of entry and
exit of small- and medium-scaleplants offer a high and positive contributionto aggregate TFP growth. These are, however, cancelled out both by the reallocationof market
shares from high to low productivitylevel plants, and incumbents' intraplantproductivity losses.
VIRGINIE
VIAL,LondonSchool ofEconomics
Rural-UrbanMigrationin the Pilsen Area During the IndustrialRevolution
This poster deals with the rural-urbanmigrationof the families duringthe Industrial
Revolution in one of the most developed parts of the Austro-Hungarianempire-the
Pilsen area. My analysis indicates that the household head's expected real rural-urban
wage gap was not the main factor which led to the migrationof families. Instead, the
family migrationdecision-makingprocess was more of a maximizationof a dynastic
utility function. The methodology of the control group technique is used to compare
the exact structureof migrantfamilies at the time of arrivalto an urbanarea with the
exact structureof families that stayed in the hinterlands.This, in additionto analyses
of the expected rural-urbanreal wage gap, helps to analyze family migrationmotifs.
ALEXANDER
KLEIN,CERGE-EI
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