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The article provides information on the causes of the industrial revolution in medieval England. It also presents information on the consequences of the industrial revolution and the problem of determining the reason for the occurrence of the revolution. The twentieth century has been remarkable for historical productivity, for the increasing quantity and range of source materials available, for the growing sophistication of techniques, and for the large-scale growth in numbers of professional economic historians, with their own societies, journals, university departments and degrees, but there still is relative ignorance about many major problems of the industrial revolution, and in lieu of detailed investigation into their solutions, inevitably much speculation. On any historical accounting, the industrial revolution is one of the great discontinuities of history; it would not be implausible indeed, to claim that it has been the greatest. Economic history has always been concerned largely with the documentation, description and explanation of what the economists call economic growth, and with so much empirical and theoretical literature on growth by the economists now available, some historians are turning towards the economists for guidance.

The article focuses on statistics of coal output in southwest Lancashire, England during 1590-1799. No one doubts the central role of coal in the Industrial Revolution, but statistics of coal output before the mid-nineteenth century are meager on both the national and the coalfield scales. Moreover, that those which do exist contain potentially serious flaws is admitted by their authors and by those who have subsequently used them. No comparable body of coalfield estimates exists for the eighteenth century. Regional statistics could not be used to corroborate or refute national estimates. It has not yet been demonstrated that there was an English economy rather than a collection of self-contained or trading regions within England by the end of the eighteenth century, and even if a cohesive national economy did exist regional rates of economic growth would differ. In such a situation national aggregate data are of chimerical value, and regional statistics are more useful for testing hypotheses about the role of coal production in the Industrial Revolution.

Copyright of Population & Development Review is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article examines the history of European economic growth during the period 1450-1750. According to the new school of development history, the critical period when different parts of the world set off along contrasting paths of economic growth occurred between 1450 and 1750, three centuries which witnessed the emergence and consolidation of European world economy based upon the capitalist mode of production. The evolution of trade and commerce under this old international economic order created conditions for development and underdevelopment in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. A striking feature of the new history of development is the absence of systematic statistical underpinning for several of its basic hypotheses. An important omission is its failure to measure the economic significance of intercontinental trade. External trade formed only a small share of economic activity. Around 1780-1790 when something like 4 percent of Europe's gross national output was exported across national frontiers, perhaps less than 1 percent would have been sold to Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean and the southern plantations of the young U.S.

The article analyzes the political factors that supports or slows down the economic growth among advanced capitalist societies. It also aims to extract an overview of the factors that influence the growth in advanced industrial societies. The discussions in the study originated mainly in the analysis which is developed by Olson regarding economic growth. Economic growth is defined as the increase in the gross domestic product per capita over time at the constant price. The relationship of domestic political environment in a country and its wealth-creating capacity is also investigated.

This paper studies the interaction between cyclical uncertainty, precautionary saving and economic growth in a stochastic endogenous growth model. The analysis provides insight into the potential connection between technological uncertainty of the sort popularized in teal business cycle models and the determinants of economic growth in a stochastic version of a popular model of endogenously determined economic growth. The magnitude of the link between cyclical uncertainty and growth is quantified and found to be small in terms of its effect on the growth rate, but possibly large in terms of its effect on levels of macroeconomic variables. Moreover, the welfare costs of reduced cyclical uncertainty can be substantial, owing to the lower historical rate of capital accumulation induced by a decrease in precautionary saving. The chief implications of the model are found to he roughly consistent with the post-war experience of several countries, although the predictions of the model with regard to growth rates are too small to explain much of the variation in growth rates across time or across countries.

There has been a considerable rise in discourses concerning trust from a range of academic disciplines and perspectives. Unfortunately, many of these literatures have talked past, rather than to, each other. This paper develops an analysis of trust in economic activity through a dialogue between the disciplines of economics and sociology. It outlines the relationship of trust to economic co-operation and identifies a number of types of trust. The potential benefits of these different types of trust to advanced capitalist economies are identified. Consideration is given to the processes of trust creation and destruction in market economies. Particular emphasis here is on how far trust can be symbiotic with, or contradictory to, power and the market. With an analysis of the key properties of individual agents which make them more or less prone to trusting behaviour, the paper is then able to identify the critical factors likely to underlie high-trust and low-trust economies. This has important public policy implications given the potential benefits which trust can have for advanced economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a survey of research in Chinese economic history. The study of Chinese economic history is as old as China's modern history itself. The field has been led and dominated by the West. Scholarly attempts have been made since the beginning of this century to explain China's premodern success and its downfall after the Opium War. Two approaches can be identified: the "Sinological approach" which refers to China only and the "comparative method" which compares China with the West. The former tries to find out what achievements China managed to make and when and how it made them, and the latter seeks to understand why premodern China was not industrialized. With rich historical materials to work on, China embraces in its past almost all the key issues for economic history. The country's importance and utility in world economic history will remain, and research in Chinese economic history will attract even greater attention from the scholarly world in this new millennium. Among the great diversity of topics, the function of the Chinese state including the standardization of time, language, roads, currency, weights and measures, as well as construction and maintenance of the Great Walls and grand canals, may well have been the state response to the demand for public goods from the general public to lower transaction costs in the economy rather than the means to strengthen imperial rule.

The article analyzes related hypothesis concerning the effects of different types of federal expenditures on economic growth in the Appalachian counties during business cycles. A rich tradition of research shows that ecological processes are important determinants of social system change and economic growth. The human ecology approach is a market-oriented perspective that focuses on the natural aspects of local development. According to ecological theory, social system growth is partly a function of the spatial dominance of primary sustenance functions (particularly natural resources) and diversity of sustenance activities. The analysis shows an expected intercation effect between minig earnings and public investment spending. Countries with greater earnings from mining experienced slightly higher net income and employment growth related to public investment spendiug in the 1983-1988 business cycle and shightly higher growth in civilian employment during the 1989-1992 recession. The public goods perspective of econimc development up )n wli ich most development policies are based assumes that growth is a pre- condition to development.

The traditional view that has predominated in the industrial world has been that of a total clash between economic activity and the protection of the environment. This perception has evolved somewhat and currently environmental considerations have become a fundamental part of business practices. The first step that may help organizations to face these new challenges lies in recognizing the competitive advantages that environmental management systems, EMSs, can bring. This article presents the findings of a recent survey of Spanish firms. The results suggest that a positive relationship exists between the effects of EMSs and improving firms' competitiveness. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. and ERP Environment [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the literature on currency and banking crises. Currency and banking crises are characterized according to some standards in the literature and their historical record summarized. The development of the literature from first through fourth-generation, or so-called ‘institutional’ models is reviewed. A digression on institutions is provided along with some sidebars on the development of the literature on institutions as it relates to economic growth. The empirical research on third-generation (or twin crises) models and on institutional models of currency and banking crises, which are so far scarce, is covered too. A summary of the main policy issues for dealing with financial crises is presented. The paper closes with an emphasis on institutions and a call for more research directed at institutions and their role in the financial system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past three decades, those advocating for arts funding have shifted their arguments. When the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA) was created in 1965, its supporters praised arts and culture for their uplifting qualities, and for their ability to counterbalance trends toward materialism and militarism. By the 1990s, arts advocates were far more likely to use instrumentalist arguments, showing that investment in arts and culture produce other desirable benefits, most notably economic development advances. This article reviews the changing discourse of arts advocacy in several ways: (1) by reviewing and coding Congressional debates on arts funding from 1965–2000, (2) reviewing arts coverage in the New York Times and selected arts periodicals during this same time period. Comparing this case to others in the literature on policy redefinition, the paper argues that cultural advocates have consciously reframed their arguments to broaden their appeal in the face new and more threatening opposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors formalize the role of legal infrastructure in economic development in a general-equilibrium model with endogenously determined property rights enforcement. The mutual importance of property rights protection and market production is illustrated by the model's multiplicity of equilibria. In one equilibrium, property rights are enforced, and market activity unhampered. In the other, property rights are not enforced, discouraging economic activity, which leaves the economy without the resources and the incentives to enforce property rights. Even identically endowed economies may therefore find themselves in very different equilibria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines whether movements in economic factors dictated by the dividend discount model can explain broad movements in stock returns over the business cycle. As anticipated, stock returns decrease throughout economic expansions and become negative during the first half of recessions. Returns are largest during the second half of recessions, suggesting an important role for expected earnings. These results are consistent with the notion that expected stock returns vary inversely with economic conditions, yet suggest that realized returns are especially poor indicators of expected returns prior to turning points in the business cycle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on issues and topics related to the economic condition of South Africa. Indications show a positive sign of the country's economic performance. According to the International Monetary Fund, the 6 percent growth target before 2010 is achievable. This notion supports economists' views that South Africa is on a structurally higher growth path that is capable of delivering annual growth in excess of 4 percent for the next few years.

The article reports on the economic recovery experienced by Algeria in 2006. According to Karim Djouid, minister of financial reform, exchange reserves had reached a new high of $ 61 billion at the end of February 2006. This boost in exchange reserves has been brought by higher oil prices and represents an increase of $ 18 billion in just 14 months. Meanwhile, the improvement of the security situation in the country is attracting foreign investors to take a stake in the country's economic revival.

The article reports on the launch of the "National Economic Development Priority Programme (NEDPP)," the seventh economic program that seeks to raise $2.5 billion in cash and investments in Zimbabwe. Despite failures of earlier programs, officials said that this program would succeed. However, the NEDPP is high sounding but the time frame that has been proposed is rather short because what they are saying cannot be done in the six to nine months that have been proposed.

Although heterogeneity and time are central aspects of economic activity, it was predominantly the Austrian School of economics that emphasized these two aspects. In this paper we argue that the explicit consideration of heterogeneity and time is of increasing importance due to the increasing environmental and resource problems faced by humankind today. It is shown that neo-Austrian capital theory, which revived Austrian ideas employing a formal approach in the 1970s, is not only well suited to address issues of structural change and of accompanying unemployment induced by technical progress but also can be employed for an encompassing ecological-economic analysis demanded by ecological economics. However, complexity, uncertainty, and real ignorance limit the applicability of formal economic analysis. Therefore, we conclude that economic analysis has to be supplemented by considerations of political philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the contribution of the banking sector to overall economic activity for a sample of 15 OECD countries during an 18-year period. Resorting to a recently defined global Malmquist index, we detect productivity growth in both cases and study the influence of its two components, efficiency change and technical change. We further analyze the relationship between each of the two banking productivity components and economic productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the period of 1990s alone, four waves of financial crises occurred around the world. The repeated occurrence of financial crises stimulated a large number of theoretical and empirical studies on the phenomena, in particular studies on the determinants of or early warning signals of financial crises. Nonetheless, the different studies of early warning systems have achieved mixed results and there remains much room for further investigation. Since, so far, the empirical studies have focused on conventional economic modelling methods such as simplified probabilistic models and regression models, in this study we examine whether new insights can be gained from the application of the fuzzy clustering method. The theories of fuzzy sets and fuzzy logic offer us the means to deal with uncertainties inherent in a wide variety of tasks, especially when the uncertainty is not the result of randomness but the result of unknown factors and relationships that are difficult to explain. They also provide us with the instruments to treat vague and imprecise linguistic values and to model nonlinear relationships. This paper presents empirical results from analysing the Finnish currency crisis in 1992 using the fuzzy C-means clustering method. We first provide the relevant background knowledge and introduce the fuzzy clustering method. We then show how the use of fuzzy C-means method can help us to identify the critical levels of important economic indicators for predicting of financial crises. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies linear and nonlinear autoregressive leading indicator models of business cycles in G-7 countries. Our models use the spread between short-term and long-term interest rates as leading indicators for GDP. We examine data admissibility by determining whether these models have the ability to produce time series with classical cycles that resemble the observed classical cycles in the data, and then we ask whether this data admissibility lends itself to better predictions of the probability of recession. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article talks about the regional business climate in the Netherlands. It states in their assessment of the national business climate of the country, Statistics Netherlands used a total of 70 indicators for the regional business climate, which are grouped into two broad categories and eight subcategories, such as stimulants for economic growth and conditions for economic growth. It is inferred that the Netherlands as a country is just too small to relate business climate and economic growth on the subnational level. According to the authors, regional differences in factor conditions on the spatial scale of the country are just too small to influence economic growth to a really significant degree.

The empirical evidence toward rational partisan theory of business cycles is mixed and thus inconclusive. This is due to the enormous heterogeneity of the existing empirical studies. Only a few of these test explicitly for the central theoretical innovation that post-electoral blips in economic activity depend on the degree of the electoral surprise. Using polling data we present empirical evidence in favor of rational partisan theory for a panel of OECD countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We develop a Keynesian business cycle model to study how extrapolative and regressive expectation formation rules may affect fluctuations in economic activity. We find that simple expectation formation rules may have an impact on the level and the stability of the equilibrium income, the size of the multiplier and the resulting adjustment process after an exogenous shocks. Our model also reveals that national income may be influenced by how agents perceive their long-run average income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to Harvey (1988) , the forecasting ability of the term spread on economic growth is due to the fact that interest rates reflect investors' expectations about the future economic situation when deciding their plans for consumption and investment. Past literature has used ex post data on output or consumption growth as proxies for their expected value. In this paper, we employ a direct measure of economic agents' expectations, the Economic Sentiment Indicator elaborated by the European Commission, to test this hypothesis. Our results indicate that a linear combination of European yield spreads explains a surprising 93.7\% of the variability of the Economic Sentiment Indicator. This ability of yield spreads to capture economic agent expectations may be the actual reason for the predictive power of yield spreads about future business cycle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the literature is clear that areas endowed with scenic beauty, lakes, forests, and wildlife among other natural and built amenities are experiencing robust economic growth, the theoretical foundations for this work are weak. In this study, we employ a Bayesian Modeling Average (BMA) approach to address the problem of model specification. Using data for US counties, we estimate a neoclassical growth model while looking at growth over the 1990s. We look at three separate ways of measuring amenities and recreational opportunities that build on those amenities. While the results suggest that higher amenity areas experience faster growth, still some level of value-added development may be required to realize that growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to test regional convergence and to investigate interregional disparities in terms of per capita income in Greece. The novelty of our study lies in the use of a disaggregated dataset for an extended time period (1971–2003) at two regional levels (NUTS II & NUTS III). Our results indicate that there is β convergence between prefectures but not among regions, while no evidence of σ convergence is found at both regional levels. Also, the GDP geographic concentration and population density have a negative impact on growth, which outweighs the positive growth effect of population geographic concentration and GDP spatial inequality. Thus, policies aiming at the decentralization of economic activity in Greece might enhance growth and regional equality simultaneously. Finally, we do not find economic dualism across geographic areas; however, rich prefectures seem to converge faster than poor ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the paper we aim to introduce a statistical dating and detection of turning points giving them a first economic interpretation. The main advantage of the proposed approach is represented by the fact that classical and growth cycles are jointly considered both in the dating and in the detecting stage. A key result of this choice is a better description of different economic phases as well as a more accurate investigation of the economic cyclical behaviour. The proposed approach considerably improves the relevance of information delivered to users in comparison with a standard analysis based only on classical or growth cycle components. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors study the endogenous determination of financial and trade openness. They construct a theoretical framework leading to two-way feedbacks between financial and trade openness and identify these feedbacks empirically. They find that one standard deviation increase in commercial openness is associated with a 9.5% increase in de facto financial openness (% of GDP). Similarly, an increase in de facto financial openness has powerful effects on future trade openness. De jure restrictions on capital mobility have only a weak impact on de facto financial openness, while de jure restrictions on the current account have a large adverse effect on commercial openness. The authors investigate the relative magnitudes of these directions of causality using Geweke's (1982 ) decomposition methodology. They conclude that in an era of rapidly growing trade integration, countries cannot choose financial openness independently of their degree of openness to trade. Dealing with greater exposure to turbulence by imposing restrictions on financial flows is likely to be ineffectual. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When viewed in the context of children’s physical, social, and economic ecologies, children’s work has both contextually specific benefits and consequences. This paper examines children’s experiences of their economic activity using a theory of resilience as a contextually and culturally embedded phenomenon [British Journal of Social Work, 38 (2008) 218]. Though there is evidence that child labour is a potential threat to children’s well-being, some forms of children’s work may function as potential sources of health-enhancing resources associated with resilience, resulting in positive psychosocial development. Working children can find through their working experiences positive sources of efficacy and cohesion, strong identity, feelings of well-being, positive relationships, and access to material and social capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a model of economic development where the importance of financial differences caused by limited enforcement can be measured. Economies where enforcement is poor direct less capital to the production sector and employ less efficient technologies. Calibrated simulations reveal that the resulting effect on output is large. Furthermore, the model correctly predicts that the average scale of production should rise with the quality of enforcement. Finally, we find that the importance of limited enforcement rises with the importance of capital in production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the change in individual earnings has occurred at the top. This paper provides new evidence about the earnings distribution in the UK. The evidence is new in that it provides detail about what has happened within the top 10%, covering groups such as the top 1% and the top 0.5%. The aim is to set the recent rise in top earnings in historical perspective, and to make international comparisons. The evidence is new in that it covers the whole of the postwar period, allowing a contrast to be drawn with the 'golden age' of the 1950s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT We propose a new framework for building composite leading indicators for the Spanish economy using monthly targeted predictors and small-scale dynamic factor models. Our leading indicator index, based on the low-frequency components of four monthly economic variables, is able to predict the onset of the Spanish recessions as well as the gross domestic product (GDP) growth cycles and classical industrial production cycles, both historically and in real time. Also, our leading indicator provides substantial aid in forecasting annual and quarterly GDP growth rates. Using only real data available at the beginning of each forecast period, our indicator one-step-ahead forecasts shows substantial improvements over other alternatives. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Regional Science Policy & Practice is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Land finance has become one of the important major sources of fiscal revenue for Chinese local governments. The spatial allocation of land use constitutes a land‐leasing policy operation of local officials, contributing to local economic development and fluctuation. Applying data from 283 prefectural units from 2003 to 2012, this paper explores the existence of land finance cycles, focussing on the changes of the amount (as in 'area') of land‐leasing by negotiation or by auction. The empirical results suggest that land finance cycles synchronise with the PCCP (Provincial Congress of the Communist Party) cycles, in which a prefectural leader decreases the amount of land leased through negotiation and increases that of land leased through auction prior to the year of the PCCP. The findings of empirical results are consistent with the prediction of our theoretical model. Additionally, due to the existence of high uncertainty of prefectural leaders' tenure and political turnover, the effect of prefectural leaders' tenure on land finance cycles is more apparent in the early years of their tenure. The results indicate that Chinese leaders' fiscal strategies are likely to be driven by career concerns for the purpose of maximising a measured economic performance and fiscal rents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this research was to study the influence of related variety on the economic performance of Spanish provinces during the international crisis (2009–2013) and the post‐crisis period (2014–2018), with the goal of contributing to assess the validity of the skill‐relatedness approach. The research is based on labor flows in a sample of more than one million affiliated workers. Our results confirmed the influence of related variety on the growth of GDP and employment in knowledge‐based industries, in protecting against unemployment, as well as on the creation of new firms, although with marked differences according to the economic cycle. Robustness issues and possible lines of progress using this novel methodology are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]