University of Bonn
Germany

ABSTRACT
Using newly assembled data for 18 advanced economies between 1870 and 2020, I study how monetary policy affects wage inflation and unemployment and document two key findings regarding their tradeoff. First, the wage Phillips curve displays a time-varying slope. Second, the tradeoff becomes weaker in low price inflation environments due to a more pronounced unemployment response to monetary policy. These findings lend support to the idea that monetary policy has state-dependent effects, with the central banks’ ability in exploring the tradeoff being impaired by a low price inflation environment.

Banco de Portugal
Portugal

ABSTRACT
Land reforms sacrifice property rights in the name of a fairer distribution. The trade-off they imply makes their study of interest to Economic Historians: do the benefits of reduced land inequality justify the violation of property rights? The discussion about land reforms factors in both the social and efficiency consequences of land inequality. The debate preceding the Portuguese Agrarian Reform echoes these concerns and culminated in an anti-latifundia sentiment crystallized in the legislation used to justify the land occupations of 1974 to 1976. The aim of this paper is to critically assess the efficiency arguments used to justify the occupations. Was land productivity lower in latifúndio counties? A unique dataset drawn from primary sources was specially assembled to answer this question. Through standard OLS regression, this study finds that the number of agriculture journeyman per employer landowner has a statistically significant effect on agricultural productivity after controlling for geographical and soil characteristics. It also finds that introducing literacy as a control causes the effect of land inequality to disappear leading to the conclusion that policies aimed at improving human capital would have been just as effective as a land reform. Further, this study also identifies the crop mix selected as the proximate channel of transmission. Farmers in the region with the highest levels of land inequality favoured less valuable crops, like wheat. An arid climate combined with a lack of irrigation infrastructure and wheat protectionism justify this preference.

CITCEM, Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto
Portugal

RESUMO
Vitorino Magalhães Godinho, nos anos de 1970, lançou as bases do que viriam a ser os estudos sobre emigração, ao longo da história, no livro Estrutura da Antiga Sociedade Portuguesa e no seu artigo no primeiro número da revista de História Económica e Social. Esta comunicação pretende discutir os valores de saídas apresentados pelo autor em trabalhos que se tornaram clássicos e inúmeras vezes repetidos. Para tal será feita uma análise dos números lançados por Godinho e uma comparação com os dados apresentados por outros investigadores com o intuito de rever a historiografia sobre o assunto e testar a validade dos seus números – que alguns autores consideram demasiado elevados. Interessa a este estudo perceber também quais as fontes utilizadas para este tipo de abordagens, principalmente até ao século XVIII, antes da introdução do passaporte. Para o fazer será utilizado o estudo de caso do Brasil, território que, ao longo da época moderna, foi concentrando os destinos de emigração daqueles que partiam do reino para fora da Europa. Esta metodologia servirá para discutir as vantagens dos estudos dirigidos a espaços específicos para um apuramento mais afinado do número total de migrantes. Será ainda avançada uma proposta de fonte que pode ser usada com este objetivo: os processos inquisitoriais. A riqueza desta documentação é sobejamente conhecida dos historiadores, mas o seu potencial como fonte para o estudo da emigração numa perspetiva macro é ainda pouco divulgado. Através dela poderemos calcular a dimensão da emigração para determinados espaços, com o Nordeste à cabeça, e perceber também motivações para a partida ou a fixação num território em particular. Estes processos servirão ainda para determinar de onde estes migrantes são naturais, com Lisboa a assumir um peso que contraria os resultados expectáveis junto da bibliografia, ainda que o Entre Douro e Minho mantenha a preponderância.

Nova School of Business and Economics
Lisbon, Portugal

ABSTRACT
Up to World War II the Bank of Portugal (BoP) was far from possessing the features normally associated with a central bank. It was still a commercial bank, although one that had acquired some central bank functions. The World War II period was decisive to change this ambiguity. The change was mostly caused by an unusually large influx of international means of payment (gold and foreign exchange) as a consequence of Portuguese neutrality during the war, which allowed the BoP to transform its balance sheet structure: the BoP became the institution centralising commercial banks’ reserves. However, all of this happened during a very disturbing period for the BoP. The BoP had been reformed to function as the manager of the escudo in the gold‐exchange standard. But just a few months after the reform, the goldexchange standard collapsed. The BoP adapted quickly to the new environment of discretion, Government interference, and nationalism. It did it so, however, in a relatively original way: it followed the trend but kept at the same time certain features of a central bank still committed to gold standard principles. This was visible during both the World War II and Post‐War periods.