Herman de Jong
University of Groningen
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Publication
Featured researches published by Herman de Jong.
The Journal of Economic History | 2007
Rainer Fremdling; Herman de Jong; Marcel P. Timmer
We present a new estimate of Anglo-German manufacturing productivity levels for 1935/36. It is based on archival data on German manufacturing and published British census data. We calculate comparative levels of value added, correcting for differences in prices for outputs and inputs. This so-called double deflation procedure provides new insights into productivity comparisons because output- and input price structures differed greatly between the two countries. Although the new calculations confirm existing results at an aggregate level, they reveal important differences at the industry level and show how Germany was striving for autarky as it prepared its economy for war.
European Review of Economic History | 2008
Maarten Bosker; Steven Brakman; Harry Garretsen; Herman de Jong; Marc Schramm
The evolution of city growth is usually studied for relatively short time periods. The rise and decline of cities is, however, typically a process that takes many decades or even centuries. In this article we study the evolution of Italian cities over the period 1300–1861. Using an existing data set, we perform panel estimations where the development of city size and urban patterns can be explained by various geographical, institutional and other determinants of city size for the period under consideration. Although large shocks such as the plague epidemics are clearly visible in the data, our baseline estimation results show that the main determinants of Italian city growth are physical geography and the predominance of capital cities. With respect to geography, being a seaport or having access to navigable waterways increases city size whereas a citys relative location, measured by its urban potential, is not significant. Being a capital city also increases city size. The estimation results reveal strong century-specific effects on city growth and these effects differ markedly between the North and South of Italy. Additional estimations show that these time effects can be linked to the political and institutional developmental changes over time in Italy. Our findings that the capital city bonus increases and non-capital cities suffer when the political power and the institutions of the state are more centralised corroborate the idea that institutions are a key factor in explaining Italian city growth.
The Journal of Economic History | 2011
Robert Inklaar; Herman de Jong; Reitze Gouma
Technology shocks and declining productivity have been advanced as important factors driving the Great Depression in the United States, based on real business cycle theory. We estimate an improved measure of technology for interwar manufacturing, using data from the U.S. census reports. There is clear evidence of increasing returns to scale and we find no statistical proof that technology shocks led to changes in hours worked or other inputs. This contradicts a key prediction of real business cycle theory. We find that increasing returns to scale are not due to market power but to labor and capital hoarding.
International Handbooks of Quality-of-Life | 2015
Herman de Jong
Since the spread of industrialization, which began in England in the second half of the eighteenth century, many countries took off on a development path leading to modern economic growth. The process of modernization resulted in a 16-fold increase in the standard of living of the average world citizen. Productivity growth and structural change, however, was characterized by uneven development, within and across nations. This chapter discusses the various ways in which welfare growth is measured and how the different aspects of quality of life such as inequality, health and leisure have developed in the long run. The chapter closes with a discussion of an historical index of human development across world regions since 1870. It conjectures that social indicators are becoming more dependent again on income growth, in contrast to the experience of the first half of the twentieth century.
The Journal of Economic History | 2016
Robert Inklaar; Herman de Jong; Reitze Gouma
The role of technology shocks as a driver of the Great Depression is the topic of our own earlier work and the paper by Watanabe in this issue. While the two studies differ in their data and assumptions, they complement each other and strengthen the conclusion of both papers: technology shocks were not the driving force of the Great Depression.
European Review of Economic History | 2000
Stephen Broadberry; Herman de Jong
This collection of articles is the result of a workshop organised to consider technology and productivity in historical perspective, drawing in particular on the evolutionary approach. The workshop was organised by the N.W. Posthumus Institute for Economic and Social History, the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS) and the Groningen Growth and Development Centre. Economic historians with backgrounds in both evolutionary and neoclassical traditions came together in the pleasant surroundings of the NIAS at Wassenaar in May 1999, to re-examine technology and productivity experience in Europe since the Industrial Revolution. An important focus was provided by recent theoretical developments, which have seen the incorporation of many evolutionary ideas into mainstream economics. Until quite recently, there seemed to be little common ground between approaches to technology and growth based on Solows (1956) neoclassical growth model and Nelson and Winters (1982) evolutionary, neo-Schumpeterian model. Now, however, the evolutionary approach has entered the mainstream through the work of writers such as Grossman and Helpman (1991) and Aghion and Howitt (1998) on endogenous innovation, and David (1985) and Arthur (1994) on path dependence. This is a particularly welcome development from the perspective of the European Historical Economics Society, the sponsors of the European Review of Economic History, holding out the promise of a genuinely ‘historical economics’.
GGDC Research Memorandum | 2007
Rainer Fremdling; Herman de Jong; Marcel P. Timmer
Archive | 2007
E. Maarten Bosker; Steven Brakman; Harry Garretsen; Herman de Jong; Marc Schramm
Archive | 2016
Ye Ma; Herman de Jong
Australian Economic History Review | 2016
Joost Veenstra; Herman de Jong