IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/buhirw/v85y2011i01p39-63_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Economics, History, and Causation

Author

Listed:
  • Morck, Randall
  • Yeung, Bernard

Abstract

Economics and history both strive to understand causation: economics by using instrumental variables econometrics, and history by weighing the plausibility of alternative narratives. Instrumental variables can lose value with repeated use because of an econometric tragedy of the commons: each successful use of an instrument creates an additional latent variable problem for all other uses of that instrument. Economists should therefore consider historians' approach to inferring causality from detailed context, the plausibility of alternative narratives, external consistency, and recognition that free will makes human decisions intrinsically exogenous.

Suggested Citation

  • Morck, Randall & Yeung, Bernard, 2011. "Economics, History, and Causation," Business History Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 85(1), pages 39-63, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:buhirw:v:85:y:2011:i:01:p:39-63_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S000768051100002X/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Summers, Lawrence H, 1986. "Does the Stock Market Rationally Reflect Fundamental Values?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 41(3), pages 591-601, July.
    2. Angus Deaton, 2010. "Instruments, Randomization, and Learning about Development," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(2), pages 424-455, June.
    3. Ricardo J. Caballero, 2010. "Macroeconomics after the Crisis: Time to Deal with the Pretense-of-Knowledge Syndrome," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 24(4), pages 85-102, Fall.
    4. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson, 2001. "The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1369-1401, December.
    5. Martin Feldstein, 2009. "Rethinking the Role of Fiscal Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(2), pages 556-559, May.
    6. Peter Blair Henry & Conrad Miller, 2009. "Institutions versus Policies: A Tale of Two Islands," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(2), pages 261-267, May.
    7. Albouy, David, 2006. "The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Investigation of the Settler Mortality Data," Center for International and Development Economics Research, Working Paper Series qt8kt576x8, Center for International and Development Economics Research, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    8. Geoffrey Jones & Tarun Khanna, 2006. "Bringing history (back) into international business," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 37(4), pages 453-468, July.
    9. Rajan, Raghuram G. & Zingales, Luigi, 2003. "The great reversals: the politics of financial development in the twentieth century," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 5-50, July.
    10. Morck, Randall & Nakamura, Masao, 2007. "Business Groups and the Big Push: Meiji Japan's Mass Privatization and Subsequent Growth," Enterprise & Society, Cambridge University Press, vol. 8(3), pages 543-601, September.
    11. Caroline Fohlin, 2005. "The History of Corporate Ownership and Control in Germany," NBER Chapters, in: A History of Corporate Governance around the World: Family Business Groups to Professional Managers, pages 223-282, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. David L. Weimer, 1986. "Collective Delusion In The Social Sciences: Publishing Incentives For Empirical Abuse," Review of Policy Research, Policy Studies Organization, vol. 5(4), pages 705-708, May.
    13. North,Douglass C. & Wallis,John Joseph & Weingast,Barry R., 2013. "Violence and Social Orders," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107646995.
    14. Randall Morck & Bernard Yeung, 2007. "History in perspective: comment on Jones and Khanna ‘Bringing history (back) into international business’," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 38(2), pages 357-360, March.
    15. Francis X. Diebold, 1998. "The Past, Present, and Future of Macroeconomic Forecasting," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 175-192, Spring.
    16. Michie, Ranald, 2008. "The Global Securities Market: A History," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199280629.
    17. James Tobin, 1970. "Money and Income: Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 84(2), pages 301-317.
    18. Granger, C W J, 1969. "Investigating Causal Relations by Econometric Models and Cross-Spectral Methods," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 37(3), pages 424-438, July.
    19. Deepak Lal, 1993. "Poverty and Development," UCLA Economics Working Papers 707, UCLA Department of Economics.
    20. Randall K. Morck, 2005. "A History of Corporate Governance around the World: Family Business Groups to Professional Managers," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number morc05-1.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Electrification, skills and manufacturing
      by Chris Colvin in NEP-HIS blog on 2012-01-29 00:15:01

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kun Tracy Wang & Dejia Li, 2016. "Market Reactions to the First-Time Disclosure of Corporate Social Responsibility Reports: Evidence from China," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 138(4), pages 661-682, November.
    2. Harrison, Ann E. & Lin, Justin Yifu & Xu, Lixin Colin, 2014. "Explaining Africa’s (Dis)advantage," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 59-77.
    3. Knack, Steve & Xu, Lixin Colin, 2017. "Unbundling institutions for external finance: Worldwide firm-level evidence," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 215-232.
    4. Jac C. Heckelman & Bonnie Wilson, 2014. "Interest Groups and the “Rise and Decline” of Growth," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 81(2), pages 435-456, October.
    5. Ayyagari, Meghana & Demirguc-Kunt, Asli & Maksimovic, Vojislav, 2012. "Financing of firms in developing countries : lessons from research," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6036, The World Bank.
    6. Heath, Davidson & Ringgenberg, Matthew C. & Samadi, Mehrdad & Werner, Ingrid M., 2019. "Reusing Natural Experiments," Working Paper Series 2019-21, Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics.
    7. Leonardo M. Klüppel & Lamar Pierce & Jason A. Snyder, 2018. "Perspective—The Deep Historical Roots of Organization and Strategy: Traumatic Shocks, Culture, and Institutions," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 29(4), pages 702-721, August.
    8. Nathan Foley-Fisher & Eoin McLaughlin, 2013. "Irish Land Bonds: 1891-1938," Edinburgh School of Economics Discussion Paper Series 239, Edinburgh School of Economics, University of Edinburgh.
    9. Cull, Robert & Xu, Lixin Colin & Yang, Xi & Zhou, Li-An & Zhu, Tian, 2017. "Market facilitation by local government and firm efficiency: Evidence from China," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 460-480.
    10. Morten Jerven, 2016. "The Failure of Economists to Explain Growth in African Economies," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 34(6), pages 889-893, November.
    11. Alexis Cellier & Pierre Chollet & Jean†François Gajewski, 2016. "Do Investors Trade around Social Rating Announcements?," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 22(3), pages 484-515, June.
    12. Graham Brownlow, 2015. "Back to the failure: an analytic narrative of the De Lorean debacle," Business History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 57(1), pages 156-181, January.
    13. Abe de Jong & Wilco Legierse, 2022. "What causes hot markets for equity IPOs? An analysis of initial public offerings in the Netherlands, 1876–2015 [Market timing and capital structure]," European Review of Economic History, European Historical Economics Society, vol. 26(2), pages 208-233.
    14. Peter Wysocki, 2011. "New institutional accounting and IFRS," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(3), pages 309-328, August.
    15. Ryan H. Murphy, 2021. "Plausibly exogenous causes of economic freedom," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 85-105, April.
    16. Vikas Mehrotra & Randall Morck, 2017. "Governance and Stakeholders," NBER Working Papers 23460, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Öberg, Stefan, 2021. "The casual effect of fertility: The multiple problems with instrumental variables for the number of children in families," SocArXiv peuvz, Center for Open Science.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Morck, Randall & Nakamura, Masao, 2018. "Japan's ultimately unaccursed natural resources-financed industrialization," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 32-54.
    2. Randall Morck & Bernard Yeung, 2017. "East Asian Financial and Economic Development," NBER Working Papers 23845, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Deakin, Simon & Sarkar, Prabirjit & Siems, Mathias, 2018. "Is There a Relationship Between Shareholder Protection and Stock Market Development?," Journal of Law, Finance, and Accounting, now publishers, vol. 3(1), pages 115-146, May.
    4. Langlois, Richard N., 2013. "Business groups and the natural state," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 14-26.
    5. Claessens, Stijn & Yurtoglu, B. Burcin, 2013. "Corporate governance in emerging markets: A survey," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 15(C), pages 1-33.
    6. Morck Randall K & Yeung Bernard, 2010. "Corporatism and the Ghost of the Third Way," Capitalism and Society, De Gruyter, vol. 5(3), pages 1-61, December.
    7. Randall Morck & Bernard Yeung, 2009. "Never Waste a Good Crisis: An Historical Perspective on Comparative Corporate Governance," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 145-179, November.
    8. Morck, Randall & Deniz Yavuz, M. & Yeung, Bernard, 2011. "Banking system control, capital allocation, and economy performance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(2), pages 264-283, May.
    9. Randall Morck & Bernard Yeung, 2010. "Agency Problems and the Fate of Capitalism," NBER Working Papers 16490, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Luis Alfonso Dau & Randall Morck & Bernard Yin Yeung, 2021. "Business groups and the study of international business: A Coasean synthesis and extension," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 52(2), pages 161-211, March.
    11. Randall Morck & Lloyd Steier, 2005. "The Global History of Corporate Governance: An Introduction," NBER Chapters, in: A History of Corporate Governance around the World: Family Business Groups to Professional Managers, pages 1-64, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Alvaro Aguirre, 2017. "Contracting Institutions and Economic Growth," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 24, pages 192-217, March.
    13. Douglas A. Irwin & Richard Sylla, 2010. "The Significance of the Founding Choices: Editors' Introduction," NBER Chapters, in: Founding Choices: American Economic Policy in the 1790s, pages 1-21, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Hans Degryse & Thomas Lambert & Armin Schwienbacher, 2018. "The Political Economy of Financial Systems: Evidence from Suffrage Reforms in the Last Two Centuries," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(611), pages 1433-1475, June.
    15. Alali, Walid Y., 2010. "Impact of Institutions and Policy on Economic Growth: Empirical Evidence," EconStor Preprints 269878, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    16. John D. Levendis, 2018. "Time Series Econometrics," Springer Texts in Business and Economics, Springer, number 978-3-319-98282-3, June.
    17. Alali, Walid Y., 2010. "Impact of Institutions and Policy on Economic Growth: Empirical Evidence," MPRA Paper 115610, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Diby Francois Kassi & Yao Li & Zhankui Dong, 2023. "The mitigating effect of governance quality on the finance‐renewable energy‐growth nexus: Some international evidence," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(1), pages 316-354, January.
    19. Randall Morck, 2009. "The Riddle of the Great Pyramids," NBER Working Papers 14858, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Lloyd Steier, 2009. "Familial capitalism in global institutional contexts: Implications for corporate governance and entrepreneurship in East Asia," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 26(3), pages 513-535, September.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C01 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - General - - - Econometrics
    • C21 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models
    • C31 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models; Quantile Regressions; Social Interaction Models
    • G0 - Financial Economics - - General
    • M2 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Economics
    • N0 - Economic History - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:buhirw:v:85:y:2011:i:01:p:39-63_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/bhr .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.