Quelle: http://www.riha-journal.org/articles/2014/2014-jan-mar/ionescu-szathmari-en
This article aims to compare the financing of two apparently entirely different systems of pre-industrial welfare: urban institutional welfare in the federal Dutch Republic and the national Elizabethan Poor Law in Britain. By analysing a new dataset on the income and expenditure of five Dutch towns, we conclude that, despite the absence of uniform legislation, Dutch poor relief was viable at least up until the 1790s, even in times of severe crises and declining real wages. This was obtained by the – in monetary terms – remarkably stable donations by Dutch citizens, mostly through regular collections, as well as careful financial management of the charitable funds.
Quelle: http://ereh.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/18/1/82?rss=1
In introducing a two-tier foreign exchange market under the Bretton Woods system, the Belgian monetary authorities aimed to insulate the domestic currency from (speculative) capital flows. By thus escaping the macroeconomic trilemma, they should have been able in practice to avoid taking account of foreign exchange developments in the determination of the monetary policy interest rate. The goal of this paper is to test this assumption empirically. Using a Taylor-rule approach, the paper shows that towards the collapse of the Bretton Woods system the volatility of the spread between the two segments of the foreign exchange market played a growing role in the determination of the monetary policy interest rate.
Quelle: http://ereh.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/18/1/39?rss=1
This article explores the development and diffusion of market governance institutions in the marine insurance industry as the practice of insurance spread from its early origins in medieval Italy throughout the Atlantic world. Informal governance mechanisms provided the foundation for the development of insurance law administered by specialist courts. Efforts to tax and regulate the industry frequently met with limited success, both because of inter-jurisdictional competition and because merchants and brokers could to some extent opt out of the formal system. The divergence in organizational form across countries illustrates the potential for path-dependent institutional change.
Quelle: http://ereh.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/18/1/1?rss=1
Payday loans allow salaried workers to solve cash flow problems resulting from unexpected expenses or income drops. Lenders limit moral hazard risks by rationing loan sizes and terms, but with fixed costs this results in high APRs. How can wages provide more security and facilitate more favorable conditions? This paper considers the case of the Dutch East India Company (1602–1794) whose employees borrowed larger sums, for longer terms, and lower APRs. It shows how restricting employees' discretionary behavior helped solve moral hazard problems and how financial intermediaries enabled the large-scale use of loans.
Quelle: http://ereh.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/18/1/19?rss=1
This research surveys the fight against tuberculosis in postwar Europe and presents new empirical evidence (resulting from the creation of a new data set) with regards to the victory against this disease. We contribute to the literature first by explaining how and why morbidity and mortality are valid measures of the quality of life and provide new ways of thinking about standards of living. We find that all in all, both the cross-sectional and panel data results suggest that the fight against tuberculosis was mostly a function of a country's social development (living, working conditions and nutrition) than economic growth as well as the effectiveness (and organization) of public health systems.
Quelle: http://ereh.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/18/1/57?rss=1
This study of privileged Japanese families in Hawaii revisits the claim that East Asian transnational families relocate overseas either to improve their well-being or to enhance their status through their children's international education. Existing scholarship has focused mainly on the second pattern of status-seeking migration, conceptualized as ‘education migration’. By employing Benson and O'Reilly's concept of ‘lifestyle migration’, I consider the less widely studied case of migration strategies designed to increase well-being. The central difference between the two types of migrants lies in the way that migrant women construct their gendered identity through their transnational split-household arrangement – a freer self (lifestyle migrants) or a sacrificial self (education migrants). In conclusion, I call for further research on this neglected topic and propose an important dimension to facilitate lifestyle migration, gender.
Quelle: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/resolve/doi?DOI=10.1111%2Fglob.12049
Migrant remittances have received unprecedented attention over the past decade and scholars have interpreted remittance flows from a range of vantage points. In this article, we explore the meaning of remittances from three perspectives – (1) as an ingredient of terrorism and crime; (2) as a contribution to development; and (3) as an obstacle to integration. We explore these perspectives through an analysis of eight years of public debate in Norway and a review of the academic literature. Our analysis shows that remittances are open to public scrutiny, often within a strongly normative framework. Such public scrutiny is at odds with the private nature of remittances and affects migrants' everyday lives both structurally and emotionally. This scrutiny of remittances also suggests underlying assumptions about migrants' legitimate loyalties and belonging that fail to take adequate account of their multiple attachments.
Quelle: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/resolve/doi?DOI=10.1111%2Fglob.12048
The role of labour in global production networks (GPNs) requires further theoretical and empirical research. Through the case of the qualifying industrial zones (QIZs) in Egypt and Jordan, I look at how different production and labour control regimes have emerged in the two countries to exploit preferential access to the US market. I analyse how the requirements of US buyers necessitate the building of a flexible, low-cost, geographically mobile production and labour-control regime that can meet the needs of buyers in terms of cost, time to market, fluctuations in demand and shifts in sourcing policy. Migrant labour from Asia and the formation of an associated dormitory labour regime facilitated the establishment of such a regime in Jordan. The social embeddedness of workers in Egypt, by contrast, hindered this process.
Quelle: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/resolve/doi?DOI=10.1111%2Fglob.12047
In this article, I examine the transnational identities that return migrants create upon resettlement in their country of origin. Specifically, I draw on interviews with Republic of Ireland-born return migrants from the United States between the years 1996 and 2006. The analysis shows that return migrants – like other migrant groups – maintain and establish translocal identities and practices that straddle ‘here’ (Ireland) and ‘there’ (United States) upon return. However, the article goes further, asking why returnees develop such border-spanning social fields. Some recent scholarship suggests that some migrants develop transnational identities as an adaptive response to a hostile receiving society. The analysis here shows a similar process at play for certain return migrants in the post-return environment. Doubtless, for some returnees, a transnational identity is a natural outgrowth of having spent several years in the United States. Yet for others, one can better explain this transnational identity as a coping strategy to buffer resettlement anxieties and disappointments.
Quelle: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/resolve/doi?DOI=10.1111%2Fglob.12046
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