Was malthus right? a var analysis of economic and demographic interactions in pre-industrial England

This paper shows that the interaction between economic and demographic variables in England before the onset of modern economic growth did not fit some crucial assumptions of the Malthusian model. I estimated a vector autoregression for data on fertility, nuptiality, mortality and real wages over the period 1541-1840 applying a well-known identification strategy broadly used in macroeconomics. The results show that endogenous adjustment of population to real wages functioned as Malthus assumed only until the 17th century: positive checks disappeared during the 17th century and preventive checks disappeared before 1740. This implies that the endogenous adjustment of population levels to changes in real wages -one of the cornerstones of the Malthusian model- did not work during an important part of the period usually considered within the "Malthusian regime"

Adult mortality and investment: a new explanation of the English agricultural productivity in the 18th century

We claim that the exogenous decline of adult mortality at the end of the seventeenth century can be one of the causes driving both the decline of interest rate and the increase in agricultural production per acre in preindustrial England. Following the intuition of the life-cycle hypothesis, we show that the increase in adult life expectancy must have implied less farmer impatience and it could have caused more investment in nitrogen stock and land fertility, and higher production per acre. We analyse this dynamic interaction using an overlapping generation model and show that the evolution of agricultural production and capital rates of return predicted by the model coincide fairly well with their empirical pattern

A methodological approach to estimating the money demand in pre-industrial economies: probate inventories and Spain in the 18th century

The study of monetary phenomena and the understanding of price determination in Modern Europe are too often limited by the scarcity of good-quality data sets on the evolution across time of variables like money holdings, income, or wealth. In this paper we show that the information contained in probate inventories can be extremely useful to circumvent that problem. In particular, combining a data set of 114 inventories from Palencia (North of Spain) between 1750 and 1770 with census information (Catastro de Ensenada) we make a cross-section estimation of a money demand which is the first one ever produced for any period before the 19th century. The results provide meaningful insights about the relation between money demand and wealth, urbanization and structural change in a pre-industrial economy and highlight the potential of probate inventories to improve our knowledge of the monetary history of Modern Europe

Currency Circulation in Northern Argentina After Independence: Tucuman Between 1820 and 1850

The study of monetary phenomena in Argentina between 1810 and 1850 is complicated by the lack of historical sources and the coexistence of various currencies. According to previous research, the north of the country and specially Tucumán have been strongly influenced by Bolivian monetary policy and its currency devaluation throught the issue of coins Know as «feble». However, so far, a quantitative analysis of the circulation of money in this region for this period does not exist. This article shows that probate inventories have a great potential for advancing the exploration of these issues and presents an analysis of all the inventories available for Tucumán between 1820 and 1850. With this information the demand for money for this period is estimated and we confirm that money in circulation would have become more abundant in the 1840s, the period of highest levels of issue of «feble» coins, but without an obvious break with previous decades.El estudio de los fenómenos monetarios en Argentina entre 1818 y 1850 es dificultoso por la escasez de fuentes y por la coexistencia de diversos tipos de moneda. Según la literatura, el norte del país se vio fuertemente influenciado por la política monetaria boliviana de emisión de moneda feble entre 1830 y 1870 y la provincia de Tucumán habría tenido un rol especialmente importante en este proceso. Sin embargo, hasta hoy, no existen aproximaciones cuantitativas sobre la circulación de moneda para esa región en ese período. Este artículo muestra que los inventarios post-mortem tienen un gran potencial para explorar estas cuestiones y presenta los resultados del análisis de todos los inventarios disponibles en Tucumán entre 1820 y 1850. Con esta información estimamos una demanda de dinero para este período y confirmamos que la moneda se habría hecho más abundante a partir de 1840, coincidiendo con la mayor emisión de feble, pero sin una ruptura radical con décadas anteriores

Argentina's business cycles in the long run: A descriptive exercise (1880-2020)

An updated descriptive analysis of the cyclical behavior of the main macroeconomic variables in Argentina between 1880 and 2020 suggests that the dynamics changed substantially since 1976. Specifically, we observed changes in the phases’ duration, amplitude, and excess and that economic volatility did decrease when the economy was relatively more closed between 1945 and 1976 but it increased again until 2020.Un análisis descriptivo actualizado del comportamiento cíclico de las principales variables macroeconómicas en Argentina entre 1880 y 2020 sugiere que la dinámica cambió sustancialmente desde 1976. Específicamente, observamos cambios en la duración, amplitud y exceso de las fases y que la volatilidad económica disminuyó cuando la economía estaba relativamente más cerrada entre 1945 y 1976, pero volvió a aumentar hasta 2020.Fil: Catelén, Ana Laura. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Sociales; Argentina.Fil: Nicolini Alessi, Esteban Alberto. Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Ciencias Sociales, España