ObjectivesCOVID-19 lockdown measures have challenged people’s mental health, especially among eco... more ObjectivesCOVID-19 lockdown measures have challenged people’s mental health, especially among economically vulnerable households. The objective of this study was to investigate the impact of exposure to COVID-19 shocks (defined as job loss, living cost pressures and changing housing conditions throughout the lockdown period) and double precarity (defined as precarity in housing and employment) on mental health outcomes for members of share households as well as the mediating effects of a range of resources.DesignWe conducted a two-wave survey of occupants of share housing in June and October 2020 during a prolonged period of population lockdown. Research design involved fixed effects ordered logit regression models to assess the mental health consequences of baseline precarity and COVID-related shocks.SettingVictoria, Australia.ParticipantsWe surveyed 293 occupants of share houses (mean age 34 SD 11.5, 56% female). Members of share houses (where individuals are unrelated adults and ...
We document the origins of Australia's egalitarianism by quantifying both thelevelandtrendsof... more We document the origins of Australia's egalitarianism by quantifying both thelevelandtrendsof earnings inequality during 1870–1910 by constructing social tables for earnings, thus overcoming the constraints imposed by the lack of income, tax and wealth data. We find that earnings inequality was much lower in Australia than in the United States and the United Kingdom in 1870 and that there was no rise in Australian earnings inequality over the half century 1870–1910, but rather a fall. We argue that such findings are driven by a faster skill supply growth relative to demand.
Although the Australian historical literature covering the colonies’ first century from 1788 to 1... more Although the Australian historical literature covering the colonies’ first century from 1788 to 1871 is packed with assertions about Australian living standards and inequality exceptionalism, there has been very little evidence offered to confirm them. This paper establishes the Australian facts about living standards and inequality trends between the 1820s and the 1870s. We first explore the end-period benchmark, 1871, where previous literature has reported a big Australian income per capita and living standard lead. We ask whether 1871 is a poor choice for making these comparisons, and whether 1861 would be better. The US had just fought a Civil War, underwent a “lost growth decade” and southern destruction. In addition, both countries had to deal with a mineral rent bust. The revised calculation for 1861 reports a smaller Australian living standard lead, but a significant lead nonetheless. Next we ask whether Australia was born (relatively) rich or grew (relatively) rich by (rela...
The motivation for this paper is to discover the arrangements made by banks to settle the world’s... more The motivation for this paper is to discover the arrangements made by banks to settle the world’s financial payments in the 1930s. Drawing from transaction cost theory we show that correspondent banking relationships were more important and widespread than multinational banks’ branches. The argument is then tested empirically by a gravity model using an instrumental Poisson pseudomaximum likelihood estimation strategy. We find that the strength of bilateral trade, the presence of financial centres, colonial linkages and the size of the financial sector in host countries drove the choice between branches and correspondents.
Context: While there is emerging evidence of large spikes in housing stress, high unemployment an... more Context: While there is emerging evidence of large spikes in housing stress, high unemployment and mental health issues across Australian households, very little is known about the unique experiences of members of share houses. Members of share houses are more likely to be young; in casual employment; at risk of homelessness; in informal, short-term and over-crowded living situations; and born overseas than the general population. These factors represent overlapping layers of vulnerability during a pandemic and require devoted research and policy attention. The data reported in this paper is based on 1052 responses to an online survey released between June 9 and June 2
COVID-19 is re-shaping cities and regions, as residents respond to large disruptions to employmen... more COVID-19 is re-shaping cities and regions, as residents respond to large disruptions to employment and social interaction and threats to public health. While the impacts of COVID-19 are extensive, certain groups are more vulnerable than others. Our research examines the impact of COVID-19 on members of share houses in the state of Victoria, Australia. This cohort is more likely to be young, casually employed, living in informal arrangements and at risk of homelessness than the broader population. We propose a conceptual framework for investigating the factors driving vulnerability to shocks and the resources most likely to support individuals to respond to or recover from these shocks. We surveyed 1052 share house occupants in June 2020. We found dramatic results, with 74% losing their job or having their hours reduced, 47% experiencing a reduction in their financial situation and 50% reporting that their mental health had deteriorated. These outcomes were worse for young people, casual employees or immigrants. Our research highlights the positive influence of social support for low-income individuals. We find that government social welfare payments are the most impactful form of insurance, calling for a greater appreciation of the role of social welfare in supporting resilience following a disaster.
We use over 250 years of conflict and market integration data to provide the first evidence that ... more We use over 250 years of conflict and market integration data to provide the first evidence that Atlantic trade contributed to Europe's pacification between 1640 and 1896. While the decline in conflict in Europe during this period has been well documented, the role of Atlantic trade has not been previously explored due to a lack of historical trade data. We overcome this constraint by using wheat prices to calculate time-varying measures of market integration between Europe and the New World, which we use as a proxy for Atlantic trade. To identify the causal effects of Atlantic trade, we exploit exogenous changes in wind patterns and tropical cyclone activity over the Atlantic Ocean to instrument trade. Our results suggest that the growth in Atlantic trade between the mid-17th to the early 19th century lowered the probability of intra-European conflict onset by 14.90 percent. We find empirical support for two channels driving our results: first, Atlantic trade led to an increase in real wages and a reduction in both army and navy sizes in Europe. Second, we show that the possibility of forgone Atlantic trade acted as a deterrent to conflict.
In Australia and many other countries of the Global North, public housing estates are being disma... more In Australia and many other countries of the Global North, public housing estates are being dismantled and redeveloped to create mixed-income communities. Proponents of redevelopment argue that the introduction of private housing will reduce public housing residents' experiences of stigma. In this paper, we interrogate these assumptions by identifying the degree of stigma directed at the social housing system, the characteristics of those most likely to stigmatise, the impact of proximity to public housing estates on stigmatisation and the words used to describe social housing. Our empirical strategy relies on a multi-dimensional social housing stigma scale, cross-sectional ordinary-least-square regression analysis and a qualitative analysis of respondents' association with the term public housing. We find that a higher level of stigma is correlated with private residents, older respondents, lower incomes and those that have lived in their current neighbourhoods for longer. Drawing on social contact theory, we investigate contact with public housing residents as a predictor of stigmatisation. We find that intra-group contact, positive interactions between social and private residents and proximity to Kensington Estate, a mixed-tenure development, contribute to lower stigmatisation.
We present novel quantitative evidence on the number and location of correspondent banking relati... more 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.
This is a PDF file of an article that has undergone enhancements after acceptance, such as the ad... more This is a PDF file of an article that has undergone enhancements after acceptance, such as the addition of a cover page and metadata, and formatting for readability, but it is not yet the definitive version of record. This version will undergo additional copyediting, typesetting and review before it is published in its final form, but we are providing this version to give early visibility of the article. Please note that, during the production process, errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.
The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of t... more The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.
We examine the effect of inter-ethnic income inequality on Jew-Arab conflict intensification in M... more We examine the effect of inter-ethnic income inequality on Jew-Arab conflict intensification in Mandate Palestine. Using archival, primary, and secondary sources, we construct a novel panel data set comprising district-level characteristics and conflict intensity across 18 districts over 22 years (1926-1947). We instrument Jew-Arab income inequality by combining annual variation in rainfall with cross-sectional variation in pre-Mandate crop intensity, thus exploiting the relationship between crop harvests and agricultural earnings to extract plausibly exogenous variation in income inequality. We find a substantial effect of Jew-Arab income inequality on conflict intensification, especially for years in which the British exhibited stronger support for Zionism and in which Jewish immigration rose sharply. While both groups contributed to violence, our estimates are mainly driven by Arab-initiated attacks, suggesting that they reflect local average treatment effects of Arab farmers who move from agrarian work to violence in response to adverse rainfall shocks.
This paper studies the relationship between commodity markets in two key regions of the internati... more This paper studies the relationship between commodity markets in two key regions of the international economy during the 1469-1914 period: the Ottoman Empire and Europe. By providing evidence on what thus far has been largely a qualitative discussion, we propose the first comprehensive empirical analysis of the process of market integration between Istanbul and 19 European cities, using data on commodity baskets and a set of traded goods. By computing dynamic factor models using Bayesian inference we are able to overcome a series of data constraints, such as missing observations and small sample size. The results point to the existence of broad and persistent market linkages between the two regions throughout four and half centuries. We also find that market integration was negatively impacted by the intensity of Ottoman-European conflicts. * We acknowledge financial support from the Faculty of Business and Economics, University of Melbourne. We thank the participant at the Brown Bag,
This paper provides the first quantitative assessment of colonial Jamaican real incomes and incom... more This paper provides the first quantitative assessment of colonial Jamaican real incomes and income inequality. We collect local prices to construct cost of living and purchasing power parity indicators. The latter lowers Jamaica"s GDP per capita compared with the rest of the Atlantic economy. We also compute welfare ratios for a range of occupations and build a social table. We find that, being a net food importer, the slave colony had extremely high living costs, which rose steeply during the American War of Independence, and low standards of living, particularly for its enslaved population, but also for the free unskilled population that competed with slave labor. Our results also show that due to its extreme poverty for the many in the middle of great wealth for the few, Jamaica was the most unequal place yet studied in the pre-modern world. Furthermore, all of these characteristics applied to the free population alone.
This paper contributes to the New World living standard leadership debate by comparing the Austra... more This paper contributes to the New World living standard leadership debate by comparing the Australian experience during 1820s-1870s with the US, Latin America, and the UK. Using novel living costs data we compute two estimates of income leadership: welfare ratios and PPPadjusted GDP per capita. Australia started considerably below the UK and the US but by the 1870s it had overtaken the former and had almost done so for the latter, due to relatively rapid labor productivity growth and a steep decline in living costs. Still, in the 1870s Australia was not the world income leader, but a close second.
Compared with its nineteenth century competitors, Australian GDP per worker grew exceptionally fa... more 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.
Why do some firms last longer than others? This question has attracted considerable interest amon... more 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 firstorder 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.
The Ottoman Empire underwent a process of integration with the global economy during the second h... more The Ottoman Empire underwent a process of integration with the global economy during the second half of the Nineteenth Century. This paper explores one aspect of this process, examining the linkages established between the cotton industries in Egypt and Western Anatolia, which we consider as part of the Empire, and the international cotton market during the first wave of globalisation.
ObjectivesCOVID-19 lockdown measures have challenged people’s mental health, especially among eco... more ObjectivesCOVID-19 lockdown measures have challenged people’s mental health, especially among economically vulnerable households. The objective of this study was to investigate the impact of exposure to COVID-19 shocks (defined as job loss, living cost pressures and changing housing conditions throughout the lockdown period) and double precarity (defined as precarity in housing and employment) on mental health outcomes for members of share households as well as the mediating effects of a range of resources.DesignWe conducted a two-wave survey of occupants of share housing in June and October 2020 during a prolonged period of population lockdown. Research design involved fixed effects ordered logit regression models to assess the mental health consequences of baseline precarity and COVID-related shocks.SettingVictoria, Australia.ParticipantsWe surveyed 293 occupants of share houses (mean age 34 SD 11.5, 56% female). Members of share houses (where individuals are unrelated adults and ...
We document the origins of Australia's egalitarianism by quantifying both thelevelandtrendsof... more We document the origins of Australia's egalitarianism by quantifying both thelevelandtrendsof earnings inequality during 1870–1910 by constructing social tables for earnings, thus overcoming the constraints imposed by the lack of income, tax and wealth data. We find that earnings inequality was much lower in Australia than in the United States and the United Kingdom in 1870 and that there was no rise in Australian earnings inequality over the half century 1870–1910, but rather a fall. We argue that such findings are driven by a faster skill supply growth relative to demand.
Although the Australian historical literature covering the colonies’ first century from 1788 to 1... more Although the Australian historical literature covering the colonies’ first century from 1788 to 1871 is packed with assertions about Australian living standards and inequality exceptionalism, there has been very little evidence offered to confirm them. This paper establishes the Australian facts about living standards and inequality trends between the 1820s and the 1870s. We first explore the end-period benchmark, 1871, where previous literature has reported a big Australian income per capita and living standard lead. We ask whether 1871 is a poor choice for making these comparisons, and whether 1861 would be better. The US had just fought a Civil War, underwent a “lost growth decade” and southern destruction. In addition, both countries had to deal with a mineral rent bust. The revised calculation for 1861 reports a smaller Australian living standard lead, but a significant lead nonetheless. Next we ask whether Australia was born (relatively) rich or grew (relatively) rich by (rela...
The motivation for this paper is to discover the arrangements made by banks to settle the world’s... more The motivation for this paper is to discover the arrangements made by banks to settle the world’s financial payments in the 1930s. Drawing from transaction cost theory we show that correspondent banking relationships were more important and widespread than multinational banks’ branches. The argument is then tested empirically by a gravity model using an instrumental Poisson pseudomaximum likelihood estimation strategy. We find that the strength of bilateral trade, the presence of financial centres, colonial linkages and the size of the financial sector in host countries drove the choice between branches and correspondents.
Context: While there is emerging evidence of large spikes in housing stress, high unemployment an... more Context: While there is emerging evidence of large spikes in housing stress, high unemployment and mental health issues across Australian households, very little is known about the unique experiences of members of share houses. Members of share houses are more likely to be young; in casual employment; at risk of homelessness; in informal, short-term and over-crowded living situations; and born overseas than the general population. These factors represent overlapping layers of vulnerability during a pandemic and require devoted research and policy attention. The data reported in this paper is based on 1052 responses to an online survey released between June 9 and June 2
COVID-19 is re-shaping cities and regions, as residents respond to large disruptions to employmen... more COVID-19 is re-shaping cities and regions, as residents respond to large disruptions to employment and social interaction and threats to public health. While the impacts of COVID-19 are extensive, certain groups are more vulnerable than others. Our research examines the impact of COVID-19 on members of share houses in the state of Victoria, Australia. This cohort is more likely to be young, casually employed, living in informal arrangements and at risk of homelessness than the broader population. We propose a conceptual framework for investigating the factors driving vulnerability to shocks and the resources most likely to support individuals to respond to or recover from these shocks. We surveyed 1052 share house occupants in June 2020. We found dramatic results, with 74% losing their job or having their hours reduced, 47% experiencing a reduction in their financial situation and 50% reporting that their mental health had deteriorated. These outcomes were worse for young people, casual employees or immigrants. Our research highlights the positive influence of social support for low-income individuals. We find that government social welfare payments are the most impactful form of insurance, calling for a greater appreciation of the role of social welfare in supporting resilience following a disaster.
We use over 250 years of conflict and market integration data to provide the first evidence that ... more We use over 250 years of conflict and market integration data to provide the first evidence that Atlantic trade contributed to Europe's pacification between 1640 and 1896. While the decline in conflict in Europe during this period has been well documented, the role of Atlantic trade has not been previously explored due to a lack of historical trade data. We overcome this constraint by using wheat prices to calculate time-varying measures of market integration between Europe and the New World, which we use as a proxy for Atlantic trade. To identify the causal effects of Atlantic trade, we exploit exogenous changes in wind patterns and tropical cyclone activity over the Atlantic Ocean to instrument trade. Our results suggest that the growth in Atlantic trade between the mid-17th to the early 19th century lowered the probability of intra-European conflict onset by 14.90 percent. We find empirical support for two channels driving our results: first, Atlantic trade led to an increase in real wages and a reduction in both army and navy sizes in Europe. Second, we show that the possibility of forgone Atlantic trade acted as a deterrent to conflict.
In Australia and many other countries of the Global North, public housing estates are being disma... more In Australia and many other countries of the Global North, public housing estates are being dismantled and redeveloped to create mixed-income communities. Proponents of redevelopment argue that the introduction of private housing will reduce public housing residents' experiences of stigma. In this paper, we interrogate these assumptions by identifying the degree of stigma directed at the social housing system, the characteristics of those most likely to stigmatise, the impact of proximity to public housing estates on stigmatisation and the words used to describe social housing. Our empirical strategy relies on a multi-dimensional social housing stigma scale, cross-sectional ordinary-least-square regression analysis and a qualitative analysis of respondents' association with the term public housing. We find that a higher level of stigma is correlated with private residents, older respondents, lower incomes and those that have lived in their current neighbourhoods for longer. Drawing on social contact theory, we investigate contact with public housing residents as a predictor of stigmatisation. We find that intra-group contact, positive interactions between social and private residents and proximity to Kensington Estate, a mixed-tenure development, contribute to lower stigmatisation.
We present novel quantitative evidence on the number and location of correspondent banking relati... more 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.
This is a PDF file of an article that has undergone enhancements after acceptance, such as the ad... more This is a PDF file of an article that has undergone enhancements after acceptance, such as the addition of a cover page and metadata, and formatting for readability, but it is not yet the definitive version of record. This version will undergo additional copyediting, typesetting and review before it is published in its final form, but we are providing this version to give early visibility of the article. Please note that, during the production process, errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.
The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of t... more The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.
We examine the effect of inter-ethnic income inequality on Jew-Arab conflict intensification in M... more We examine the effect of inter-ethnic income inequality on Jew-Arab conflict intensification in Mandate Palestine. Using archival, primary, and secondary sources, we construct a novel panel data set comprising district-level characteristics and conflict intensity across 18 districts over 22 years (1926-1947). We instrument Jew-Arab income inequality by combining annual variation in rainfall with cross-sectional variation in pre-Mandate crop intensity, thus exploiting the relationship between crop harvests and agricultural earnings to extract plausibly exogenous variation in income inequality. We find a substantial effect of Jew-Arab income inequality on conflict intensification, especially for years in which the British exhibited stronger support for Zionism and in which Jewish immigration rose sharply. While both groups contributed to violence, our estimates are mainly driven by Arab-initiated attacks, suggesting that they reflect local average treatment effects of Arab farmers who move from agrarian work to violence in response to adverse rainfall shocks.
This paper studies the relationship between commodity markets in two key regions of the internati... more This paper studies the relationship between commodity markets in two key regions of the international economy during the 1469-1914 period: the Ottoman Empire and Europe. By providing evidence on what thus far has been largely a qualitative discussion, we propose the first comprehensive empirical analysis of the process of market integration between Istanbul and 19 European cities, using data on commodity baskets and a set of traded goods. By computing dynamic factor models using Bayesian inference we are able to overcome a series of data constraints, such as missing observations and small sample size. The results point to the existence of broad and persistent market linkages between the two regions throughout four and half centuries. We also find that market integration was negatively impacted by the intensity of Ottoman-European conflicts. * We acknowledge financial support from the Faculty of Business and Economics, University of Melbourne. We thank the participant at the Brown Bag,
This paper provides the first quantitative assessment of colonial Jamaican real incomes and incom... more This paper provides the first quantitative assessment of colonial Jamaican real incomes and income inequality. We collect local prices to construct cost of living and purchasing power parity indicators. The latter lowers Jamaica"s GDP per capita compared with the rest of the Atlantic economy. We also compute welfare ratios for a range of occupations and build a social table. We find that, being a net food importer, the slave colony had extremely high living costs, which rose steeply during the American War of Independence, and low standards of living, particularly for its enslaved population, but also for the free unskilled population that competed with slave labor. Our results also show that due to its extreme poverty for the many in the middle of great wealth for the few, Jamaica was the most unequal place yet studied in the pre-modern world. Furthermore, all of these characteristics applied to the free population alone.
This paper contributes to the New World living standard leadership debate by comparing the Austra... more This paper contributes to the New World living standard leadership debate by comparing the Australian experience during 1820s-1870s with the US, Latin America, and the UK. Using novel living costs data we compute two estimates of income leadership: welfare ratios and PPPadjusted GDP per capita. Australia started considerably below the UK and the US but by the 1870s it had overtaken the former and had almost done so for the latter, due to relatively rapid labor productivity growth and a steep decline in living costs. Still, in the 1870s Australia was not the world income leader, but a close second.
Compared with its nineteenth century competitors, Australian GDP per worker grew exceptionally fa... more 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.
Why do some firms last longer than others? This question has attracted considerable interest amon... more 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 firstorder 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.
The Ottoman Empire underwent a process of integration with the global economy during the second h... more The Ottoman Empire underwent a process of integration with the global economy during the second half of the Nineteenth Century. This paper explores one aspect of this process, examining the linkages established between the cotton industries in Egypt and Western Anatolia, which we consider as part of the Empire, and the international cotton market during the first wave of globalisation.
Uploads
Papers by Laura Panza