Bonn Macrohistory Webinar – Feicheng Wang (University of Göttingen). Gender effects of trade liberalization and structural change in China.

Gender effects of trade liberalization and structural change in China. This paper investigates the impact of trade liberalization induced labor demand shocks on male and female employment in China. Combining data from firm and various population surveys over the period of 1990 to 2005, we relate prefectural city-level employment by...

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Bonn Macrohistory Webinar – Dmitry Kuvshinov (Universitat Pompeu Fabra). The Expected Return on Risky Assets: International Long-run Evidence.

The Expected Return on Risky Assets: International Long-run Evidence. This paper studies long-run trends in the expected return on risky wealth and its relationship with the safe rate. We combine new data and time-varying return predictability regressions to estimate expected returns on two major risky asset classes – equity and...

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Bonn Macrohistory Webinar – Michael Poyker (Columbia University). Economic Consequences of the U.S. Convict Labor System.

Economic Consequences of the U.S. Convict Labor System. I study the economic spillovers of convict labor on local labor markets and firms. Using newly collected panel data on U.S. prisons from 1886 to 1940, I calculate each county’s exposure to prisons. I exploit quasi-random variation in a county’s exposure to...

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Macrohistory Seminar – Melissa Rubio Ramos (University of Gothenburg). From Plantations to Prisons: The Legacy of Slavery on Black Incarceration in the US.

From Plantations to Prisons: The Legacy of Slavery on Black Incarceration in the US. Black males constitute 6.5% of the US population but account for 40% of the prison population. The extent to which these disparities reflect differences in criminal conduct and socio-economic background, as opposed to differential treatment is...

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Macrohistory Seminar – Olga Goldfayn-Frank (Goethe University Frankfurt). Expectation Formation in a New Environment: Evidence from the German Reunification.

Expectation formation in a new environment: Evidence from the German Reunification. Joint with Johannes Wohlfart Exploiting the German reunification, we study how households adapt to a new environment in their macroeconomic forecasting. East Germans expect higher inflation than West Germans decades after reunification. These differences are likely driven by the persistent...

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Macrohistory Seminar – Cathrin Mohr (LMU) Carrots and Sticks: Targeting the Opposition in an Autocratic Regime

Carrots and Sticks: Targeting the Opposition in an Autocratic Regime. Autocratic regimes can use carrots or sticks to ensure that they are not overthrown by their opposition in the population. Carrots, i.e. allocation of resources, increase popularity of the regime, but can induce moral hazard if the opposition learns that...

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Macrohistory Seminar – Andrei Markevich (New Economic School). Democratic Support for the Bolshevik Revolution: An Empirical Investigation of 1917 Constituent Assembly Elections

Democratic Support for the Bolshevik Revolution: An Empirical Investigation of 1917 Constituent Assembly Elections Scholars have long-debated the causes of popular support for the Russian Revolution and how this support translated into successful regime change. We systematically investigate cross-district and cross-city variation in popular support for the Bolsheviks using voting...

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