EconStor Collection:
http://hdl.handle.net/10419/30332
2024-03-19T04:20:59ZLiving standards in Lower Canada, 1831
http://hdl.handle.net/10419/146941
Title: Living standards in Lower Canada, 1831
Authors: Geloso, Vincent; Kufenko, Vadim; Villeneuve, Remy
Abstract: This paper uses the price and wage data contained in the 1831 census of Lower Canada to provide regional estimates of disparities in living standards within Quebec in 1831. Combining these data with price data for the colony as a whole, we compare living standards in Quebec with those of numerous American and Canadian cities at the same point in time. The results show that Quebec was overall poorer in comparison. However, there are wide variations within the colony - mostly along institutional lines. As a whole, Quebec was significantly poorer than the United States at the same time.2016-09-01T00:00:00ZSpurious periodicities in cliometric series: Simultaneous testing
http://hdl.handle.net/10419/129729
Title: Spurious periodicities in cliometric series: Simultaneous testing
Authors: Kufenko, Vadim
Abstract: In this paper we revisit the methodological aspects of the issue of spurious cycles: using the well-established clinometric data, we apply an empirical strategy to identify spurious periodicities and cross-validate the results. The analysis of cyclical fluctuations involves numerous challenges, including data preparation and detrending. As a result, there is a risk of statistical artifacts to arise: it is known that summation operators and filtering yield a red noise alike spectral signature, amplifying lower frequencies and thus, longer periodicity, whereas detrending using differencing yields a blue noise alike spectral signature, amplifying higher frequencies and thus, shorter periodicity. In our paper we explicitly address this issue. In order to derive the stationary signals to be tested, we perform outlier adjustment, derive cycles from the series with the asymmetric band pass Christiano-Fitzgerald filter using the upper bands of the Kuznets and the Juglar cycles as cut-offs, and obtain detrended prefiltered signals by differencing the series in the absence of fractional integration. Afterwards, we simultaneously test whether the spectral densities of filtered and detrended prefiltered signals are significantly different from the spectral density of the related noise. The periodicities from the Kuznets range were not simultaneously significant, and thus are likely to be spurious; whereas ones of the Juglar and Kitchin ranges were simultaneously significant. The simultaneous significance test helps to identify spurious periodicities and the results, in general, accord with the durations of the business cycles found in other works.2016-03-01T00:00:00ZDemographic change and regional convergence in Canada
http://hdl.handle.net/10419/144542
Title: Demographic change and regional convergence in Canada
Authors: Geloso, Vincent; Kufenko, Vadim; Prettner, Klaus
Abstract: We examine the role of demographic change for regional convergence in living standards in Canada. Due to economies of scale within a family, decreasing household size has an impact on convergence in living standards, while per capita income convergence remains unaffected. We find that, by relying on per capita income, the dispersion of living standards between Canadian regions is overestimated prior to the 1990s and underestimated thereafter. As a consequence, relying on income per capita results in overestimating the speed of convergence in living standards.2016-01-01T00:00:00ZMonopsony and industrial development in nineteenth century Quebec: The impact of seigneurial tenure
http://hdl.handle.net/10419/146942
Title: Monopsony and industrial development in nineteenth century Quebec: The impact of seigneurial tenure
Authors: Arsenault Morin, Alex; Geloso, Vincent; Kufenko, Vadim
Abstract: We argue that the system of seigneurial tenure used in the province of Quebec until the mid-nineteenth centurya system which allowed significant market power in the establishment of plants, factories and mills, combined with restrictions on the mobility of the labor force within each seigneurial estateis best understood as a system of regionalized monopsonies in the non-farm sector. Seigneurs had incentives to reduce their employment in those sectors to reduce wage rates. We use the fact that later, with the Constitutional Act of 1791, all new settled lands had to be settled under a different system (British land laws). This natural experiment allows us to test our hypothesis that seigneurial tenure was a monopsony, using data from the 1831 and 1851 Lower Canada censuses. We find strong evidence that this difference in tenure partially explains the gap in industrial development between Quebec and the neighboring colony of Ontario.2016-01-01T00:00:00Z