TRICHOTILLOMANIA: EDUCATIONAL ISSUES

Twenty journal articles that examined the condition trichotillomania that are included in national journal databases created for educators were reviewed by a special education teacher. The articles were classified by publication type (e.g., empirical studies, descriptive articles, guides). Fourteen of the 20 articles were empirical studies. The studies were classified by research design (quantitative or mixed methods), the participants and data sources were identified, and the findings were summarized. The author analyzed the 20 articles utilizing a modified version of the Stevick-Collaizi-Keen method to develop themes that represent the essence of the literature. The four themes that emerged from the analysis include: (a) trichotillomania demographics; (b) social behaviors associated with trichotillomania; (c) trichotillomania and the school experience; and (d) trichotillomania treatments. The themes were connected to the role of the author as a special education teacher. Finally, the author reflected upon the changes the understanding illuminated by the analysis of the literature will have on his caree

Tightening Tensions: Fiscal Policy and Civil Unrest in Eleven South American Countries, 1937 - 1995

Efforts at fiscal consolidation are often limited because of concerns over potential social unrest. From German austerity measures during the 1930s to the violent demonstrations in Greece in 2010, hard times have tended to go hand in hand with antigovernment violence. In this paper, I assemble cross-country evidence from eleven South American countries for the period 1937 to 1995 about the extent to which societies become unstable after budget cuts. The results show a clear positive correlation between austerity and instability. I examine the extent to which this relationship simply captures the fact that fiscal retrenchment and economic slumps are correlated, and conclude that this is not what is driving the effect. Finally, I test for interactions with various economic and political variables. While autocracies and democracies show a broadly similar response to budget cuts, countries with a history of stable institutions are less likely to see unrest as a result of austerity measures.

Malthusian dynamism and the rise of Europe: Make war, not love

This paper argues that Malthusian regimes are capable of sustained changes in per capita incomes. Shifting mortality and fertility schedules can lead to different steady-state income levels, with long periods of growth during the transition. Europe checked the downward pressure on wages through late marriage, which reduced fertility, and a mortality regime that combined high death rates with high incomes. We argue that both emerged as a result of the Black Death.Growth, Comparative Development, Technological Progress, Demographic Transition, Diversity, Human Capital, Malthusian Stagnation, Black Death

Betting on Hitler: The value of political connections in Nazi Germany

This paper examines the value of connections between German industry and the Nazi movement in early 1933. Drawing on previously unused contemporary sources about management and supervisory board composition and stock returns, we find that one out of seven firms, and a large proportion of the biggest companies, had substantive links with the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. Firms supporting the Nazi movement experienced unusually high returns, outperforming unconnected ones by 5% to 8% between January and March 1933. These results are not driven by sectoral composition and are robust to alternative estimators and definitions of affiliation.Political Connections, Stock Market, Asset Pricing, Nazi Rise to Power, Interwar Germany

Debt sustainability in historical perspective: The role of fiscal repression

This article examines the debt history of two contenders for European hegemony: 16th-century Spain and 18th-century Britain. We analyze their fiscal behavior using measures of overborrowing and fiscal policy functions. Our results suggest that stringency was not key for Britain’s success in avoiding default. Instead, fiscal repression allowed the United Kingdom to borrow at below-market rates, thereby outspending its continental rivals.

Credit rationing and crowding out during the Industrial Revolution: Evidence from Hoare's Bank, 1702-1862

Crowding-out during the British Industrial Revolution has long been one of the leading explanations for slow growth during the Industrial Revolution, but little empirical evidence exists to support it. We argue that examinations of interest rates are fundamentally misguided, and that the eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century private loan market balanced through quantity rationing. Using a unique set of observations on lending volume at a London goldsmith bank, Hoare’s, we document the impact of wartime financing on private credit markets. We conclude that there is considerable evidence that government borrowing, especially during wartime, crowded out private credit.Credit rationing, Napoleonic wars, Industrial Revolution, technological change, crowding out

Why England? Demand, growth and inequality during the Industrial Revolution

Why was England first? And why Europe? We present a probabilistic model that builds on big-push models by Murphy, Shleifer and Vishny (1989), combined with hierarchical preferences. The interaction of exogenous demographic factors (in particular the English low-pressure variant of the European marriage pattern)and redistributive institutions – such as the “old Poor Law” – combined to make an Industrial Revolution more likely. Essentially, industrialization is the result of having a critical mass of consumers that is “rich enough” to afford (potentially) mass-produced goods. Our model is then calibrated to match the main characteristics of the English economy in 1750 and the observed transition until 1850. This allows us to address explicitly one of the key features of the British Industrial Revolution unearthed by economic historians over the last three decades – the slowness of productivity and output change. In our calibration, we find that the probability of Britain industrializing is 5 times larger than France’s. Contrary to the recent argument by Pomeranz, China in the 18th century had essentially no chance to industrialize at all. This difference is decomposed into a demographic and a policy component, with the former being far more important than the latter.Inequality, Industrial Revolution, growth, big push, redistribution, steam, general purpose technology

Interest rate restrictions in a natural experiment: loan allocation and the change in the usury laws in 1714

This article studies the effects of interest rate restrictions on loan allocation. The British government tightened the usury laws in 1714, reducing the maximum permissible interest rate from 6% to 5%. A sample of individual loan transactions reveals that average loan size and minimum loan size increased strongly, while access to credit worsened for those with little social capital. Collateralised credits, which had accounted for a declining share of total lending, returned to their former role of prominence. Our results suggest that the usury laws distorted credit markets significantly; we find no evidence that they offered a form of Pareto-improving social insurance.Economic development, banking, financial repression, usury laws, credit rationing, natural experiments, lending decisions

Sweet diversity: Colonial goods and the rise of European living standards after 1492

When did overseas trade start to matter for living standards? Traditional real-wage indices suggest that living standards in Europe stagnated before 1800. In this paper, we argue that welfare rose substantially, but surreptitiously, because of an influx of new goods as a result of overseas trade. Colonial luxuries such as tea, coffee, and sugar transformed European diets after the discovery of America and the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope. These goods became household items in many countries by the end of the 18th century. We use three different methods to calculate welfare gains based on price data and the rate of adoption of these new colonial goods. Our results suggest that by 1800, the average Englishman would have been willing to forego 10% or more of his income in order to maintain access to sugar and tea alone. These findings are robust to a wide range of alternative assumptions, data series, and valuation methods.Gains from Variety, Columbian Exchange, Trade, Economics of New Goods, Age of Discovery, Living Standards