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Networks, Markets, and Economic Performance

Paper Session

Saturday, Jan. 5, 2019 12:30 PM - 2:15 PM

Atlanta Marriott Marquis, L503
Hosted By: Economic History Association
  • Chair: Michael Haupert, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse

Building a Web of Connections: The Interlocking Directorate Network of Chinese Banks during the Republic

Lingyu Kong
,
University of Adelaid
Florian Ploeckl
,
University of Adelaid

Abstract

The domestic Chinese banking sector flourished during the Republican Era, especially in the Nanjing Government period of the 1930s. The unstable environment, however, led banks in this sector to cooperate strongly with each other, building a dense web of interlocking directorates between them. While the literature has addressed the impact of interlocking directorates on firm performance, not much attention has been paid on the evolution of such networks of connections in general.

The rise of coffee in the Brazilian southeast: agricultural efficiency vs. foreign market potential, 1827-1840

Christopher David Absell
,
University Carlos III of Madrid

Abstract

During the period spanning independence in 1822 to mid-century, Brazil’s southeast shifted from specializing in the export of cane sugar to coffee. This paper explores the mechanism underlying this shift by exploiting a new monthly database of international prices and exports from Rio de Janeiro. While the direction of the southeast’s export specialization was determined by relative agricultural efficiency, the timing of the boom was driven by a rapid increase in the foreign market potential of coffee. The abolition of tariffs on coffee in the United States and the subsequent increase in import demand, together with the relatively limited market access for sugar, generated price signals in the local market that incentivized producers to switch to coffee. The subsequent export boom converted Brazil into the principal world coffee supplier during the nineteenth century.

Who Benefited from Industrialization? The Local Effects of Hydropower Technology Adoption

Jørgen Modalsli
,
Statistics Norway
Stefan Leknes
,
Statistics Norway

Abstract

This paper studies the impact of the construction of hydropower facilities on labor market outcomes in Norway at the turn of the twentieth century (1891-1920). The sudden breakthrough in hydropower technology provides a quasi-experimental setting, as not all municipalities had suitable natural endowments and the possible production sites where often located in remote areas. We find that hydropower municipalities experienced faster structural transformation and displayed higher occupational mobility. Unskilled workers and workers from low-status families did to a greater extent obtain skilled jobs in hydropower municipalities. We interpret this as evidence that this early twentieth-century technology was skill-biased, and that workers in the new skilled jobs were recruited from a broad segment of the population. However, areas affected by the new technology also experienced occupational polarization, with an increase in high- and low-skilled manual jobs at the expense of intermediate-skilled jobs.
Discussant(s)
Gabe Mathy
,
American University
Justin Bucciferro
,
Eastern Washington University
Noel Maurer
,
George Washington University
JEL Classifications
  • N5 - Agriculture, Natural Resources, Environment, and Extractive Industries
  • N7 - Transport, Trade, Energy, Technology, and Other Services