Laura Panza

Globalization and the Near East: A Study of Cotton Market Integration in Egypt and Western Anatolia

The Near East underwent a process of integration with the global economy during the second half of the nineteenth century. This article explores one aspect of this process, examining the linkages established between the cotton industries in Egypt and Western Anatolia, and the international cotton market during the first wave of globalization. We undertake a quantitative exploration of the pattern of price transmission between the Near East and the international cotton markets over this period, connecting changes in the nature of spatial market integration to major economic and political developments.

Will India Be the Next China? Challenges, Prospects and Implications for Australia

India’s recent growth performance has been impressive and it appears set to again become amajorglobaleconomicpower.But,sustaining this growth poses formidable challenges. Australia stands to gain much from India’s growth. Inthisarticle,wereviewrecentdevelopmentsin the Indian economy, identify policy challenges and discuss short-to-medium term prospects, noting some of the main similarities and differences between China and India. Then, we look at opportunities for significant growth in Australian–Indian economic links and policy implications including the possible role of a free trade agreement.

Australian squatters, convicts, and capitalists: dividing up a fast-growing frontier pie, 1821-71: AUSTRALIAN SQUATTERS, CONVICTS, AND CAPITALISTS

Compared with its nineteenth century competitors, Australian GDP per worker grew exceptionally fast, about twice that of the US and three times that of Britain. This paper asks whether the fast growth performance produced rising inequality. Using a novel data set we offer new evidence supporting unambiguously the view that, in sharp contrast with US, Australia underwent a revolutionary leveling in incomes between the 1820s and the 1870s. This assessment is based on our annual estimates of functional shares in the form of land rents, convict incomes, free unskilled incomes, free skill premiums, British imperial transfers and a capitalist residual.

The drivers of firm longevity: Age, size, profitability and survivorship of Australian corporations, 1901–1930

Abstract Why do some firms last longer than others? This question has attracted considerable interest among scholars from business history, management and economics. Our article combines the business historian’s macro view of the relationship between size, longevity, and economic development with quantitative modelling. We apply survival analysis to data relating to size, age and profitability, three first-order explanations of longevity, for Australian stock exchange (ASX) listed corporations from 1901 to 1930. The novelty of the article is twofold: we find that firm size is a poor predictor of longevity for the full sample but its age and profitability are highly significant; our data covers a longer time frame and relates to a rich mid-sized and non-industrialised country.

Hidden in plain sight: Correspondent banking in the 1930s

Abstract We present novel quantitative evidence on the number and location of correspondent banking relationships in the 1930s, a neglected area of international banking. Our data, collected from Thomas Skinners’ Bankers’ Almanac, captures over 2000 correspondent banking connections primarily based on London and New York and a smaller cohort of multinational banks. We draw on the new institutional economics and international business literature to explain the relative ubiquity of correspondent banking and the relative scarcity of multinational banks. Our argument that bilateral trade flows drive correspondent banking is tested empirically using an instrumental Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood estimation.

Income Inequality and Conflict Intensification in Mandate Palestine

We examine the effect of inter-ethnic income inequality on conflict intensification in Mandate Palestine, using a novel panel dataset comprising district-level characteristics and conflict intensity across 18 districts during 1926-1945. We instrument Jewish-Arab income inequality by combining annual variation in rainfall with cross-sectional variation in pre-Mandate crop intensity, to extract exogenous variation in inequality between non-agrarian Jews and agrarian Arabs. We find a substantial e ect of inequality on conflict intensification, especially during periods where the relationship between Arabs and Jews were particularly strained. Our estimates are driven by Arab-initiated attacks, reflecting local average treatment effects of Arab farmers who move from agrarian work to violence in response to adverse rainfall shocks, suggesting that economic shocks coupled with existing economic segregation facilitate the transition into violence when opposing groups are economic substitutes. Further investigations reveal that inequality-driven violence was not the result of opportunity costs or appropriation, but rather an expression of resentment.