Discussant: Gabriel Mathy

The War Next Door or the Reds are Coming: The Spanish Civil War and the Portuguese Stock Market

By: João Pereira dos Santos, Nova SBE

Diogo Leitão, Nova SBE

Jaime Marques Pereira, Bocconi University

José Tavares, Nova SBE

Pereira et al analyses the impact of event in the Spanish Civil War on Portuguese Stock returns. Using a panel of weekly returns for firms listed on the Lisbon Stock Market, Pereira et al examine investors reactions to military and political events and whether the events favored the Republicans, on the left or the Nationalists, on the right.

What Happened to the US Economy During the 1918 Influenza Pandemic?
A View Through High-Frequency Data

By: Francois Velde, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago

Velde confirms the U.S. recession from the 1918 Influenza Pandemic was short and had a small impact on the overall U.S. economy. Velde uses data on industrial output, retail failures, and cross sectional data from the coal industry documenting the short-lived impacts on labor supply.

Discussant: Ahmed Rahman

Migrant Self-Selection in the Presence of Random Shocks. Evidence from the Panic of 1907

By: David Escamilla-Guerrero, University of Oxford

Moramay Lopez-Alonso, Rice University

Escamilla-Guerrero and Lopez-Alonso estimate shifts in migrant self-selection from Mexico to the U.S. from 1906 to 1907. They find Mexican migrants positively self-select on the basis of height - a proxy for physical productivity of labor. After the Panic of 1907, the heights of self-selected Mexican migrants to the U.S. declined in areas influenced by the enganche, an institution used by American companies to recurit Mexican Workers to work in the U.S..

The Economics of Gender-Specific Minimum Wage Legislation

By: Michael Poyker, Columbia University

Riccardo Marchingiglio, Northwestern University

During the 1910’s, twelve states passed and implemented the firm minimum-wage laws in the history of the United States. These law applied to specific industries and only to women employees. Using full count Census data from 1880 to 1930, Poyker and Marchingiglio find theses laws led to a decrease in women employment and an increase in the employment of men. Using both a full county sample and a restricted group of contiguous county pairs, their triple-difference strategy exploits variation across states, industries, and time.