Bignon and García-Peñalosa on The Toll of Tariffs: Protectionism, Education, and Fertility in Late 19th Century @BignonVincent

Vincent Bignon, Banque de France, Microeconomic Research Unit, and Cecilia Garcia-Peñalosa, Aix-Marseille University, have published The Toll of Tariffs: Protectionism, Education and Fertility in Late 19th Century France, as Banque de France Working Paper No. 690. Here is the abstract.

Vincent Bignon and Cecilia García-Peñalosa examine a novel negative impact of trade tariffs and the costs they induce by documenting how protectionism reversed the long-term improvements in education and the fertility transition that were well under way in late 19th-century France. The Méline tariff, a tariff on cereals introduced in 1892, was a major protectionist shock that shifted relative prices in favor of agriculture and away from industry. In a context in which the latter was more intensive in skills than agriculture, the tariff reduced the relative return to education, which in turn affected parents’ decisions about the quantity and quality of children. They use regional differences in the importance of cereal production in the local economy to estimate the impact of the tariff. Their findings indicate that the tariff reduced enrollment in primary education and increased birthrates and fertility. The magnitude of these effects was substantial. In regions with average shares of employment in cereal production, the tariff offset the (downward) trend in birthrates for 13 years; in those with the highest cereal employment shares, there was a delay of up to 22 years.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Bindsell on Some Pre-1800 French and German Central Bank Charters and Regulations

Ulrich Bindseil, European Central Bank, has published Some Pre-1800 French and German Central Bank Charters and Regulations. Here is the abstract.

In some recent studies, the question of the origins of central banking has been revisited, leading to the conclusion that beyond Swedish and British central banking, also a number of earlier European continental central banks would have played a more important role. However, it has been often difficult to access the charters and regulations of these early continental central banks – in particular in English – with Dunbar (1892) being the exception. This note contributes to close this gap in a limited sense by providing some translations of few charters and regulations of pre-1800 central banks from France and Germany, namely of the Hamburger Bank of 1619, the Leipziger Bank of 1698, the Banque Générale of John Law of 1716, the Prussian Royal Bank of 1766, and the Caisse d’Escompte of 1776. These early central banks were of heterogeneous success and duration, and actually some only partially or only temporarily deserved to be called a central bank. Moreover, they did not necessarily apply precisely their charters and regulations. Still, the texts provide important insights into the objectives and design of early continental central banks. This note does provide neither an interpretation, nor discussion, nor comparative review of the charters and regulations covered. However, it provides schematic introductions to each of the early central banks.

The full text is not available from SSRN.

Linton on Hermaphrodite Outlaws: Ambiguous Sex and the Civil Code in Nineteenth-Century France @maksdelmar

Anne E. Linton, Visiting Assistant Professor of French, Boston College, has published Hermaphrodite Outlaws: Ambiguous Sex and the Civil Code in Nineteenth-Century France at 138 Representations 87 (Spring 2017). Here is the abstract.

Hermaphrodism became a zone of frenzied publication in nineteenth-century France, when numerous doctors recommended adding a “neuter sex” or a “doubtful sex” category to the Civil Code alongside those of “male” and “female.” Although attempts to add “doubtful sex” to the code were rarely intended to protect hermaphrodites, the legal silence regarding hermaphrodism actually afforded some doctors and patients the leeway to live in ways others wished could be outlawed.

Va @maksdelmar. 

"Madame Bovary"'s Obscenity Trial: Was It Really About IP Rights?

Erin Blakemore writes about the obscenity trial of Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary for JSTOR Daily., discussing Christine Haynes' article The Politics of Publishing During the Second Empire: The Trial of "Madame Bovary" Revisited which argues that the author and fellow artists were interested in upholding their intellectual property rights more than their right to freedom of expression. More here. 

Faulkner on Law and Authority in the Early Middle Ages: A New Book From Cambridge University Press

Forthcoming: Thomas Faulkner, Law and Authority in the Early Middle Ages: The Frankish leges in the Carolingian Period (Cambridge University Press, 2016) (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought: Fourth Series). 

The barbarian law codes, compiled between the sixth and eighth centuries, were copied remarkably frequently in the Carolingian ninth century. They provide crucial evidence for early medieval society, including the settlement of disputes, the nature of political authority, literacy, and the construction of ethnic identities. Yet it has proved extremely difficult to establish why the codes were copied in the ninth century, how they were read, and how their rich evidence should be used. Thomas Faulkner tackles these questions more systematically than ever before, proposing new understandings of the relationship between the making of law and royal power, and the reading of law and the maintenance of ethnic identities. Faulkner suggests major reinterpretations of central texts, including the Carolingian law codes, the capitularies adding to the laws, and Carolingian revisions of earlier barbarian and Roman laws. He also provides detailed analysis of legal manuscripts, especially those associated with the leges-scriptorium. Examines the uses of the leges barbarorum in Carolingian Europe, contributing to a long-standing debate in English and German historiography on the use of written law codes in early medieval Europe. Contributes to the study of early medieval kingship, dispute settlement, ethnic identity and literacy Brings German scholarship to the attention of English speakers, providing Anglophone readers with a guide to otherwise inaccessible work.

More about the publication at the publisher's website here.

Influence of the French Bar on the Development of the Russian Legal Profession

Elizaveta Blagodeteleva, National Research University Higher School of Economics (Moscow), has published The French Bar and the Emerging Legal Profession in Russia as Higher School of Economics Research Paper No. WP BRP 110/HUM/2015. Here is the abstract.

The complex and seemingly inconsistent use of the social vocabulary has been on the research agenda of those who study the Russian Empire for quite some time. Historians have long believed that the indiscriminate use of such terms as "estate" ("soslovie") and "corporation" reflected Russian backwardness and eventually impeded further social and economic development, especially when it came to professional groups. The paper examines this assumption by focusing on the terminology deployed for the designation of Russian lawyers, in comparison to their French counterparts. Therefore, it dwells at length on the references to the French Bar in the bureaucratic discussion and in current press at the time of drafting the basic principles of the future Bar organization in Russia between 1857 and 1864. The comparison of the two sets of references provided plenty of evidence that the French notion of the estate (l'ordre des avocats) had a dramatic impact on the interpretation of Russian soslovie of legal practitioners. The French model seemed to spur social imagination and eventually helped Russian political and intellectual elites envisage a new type of social organization encompassing free, well-educated and politically engaged men.

Download the paper from SSRN at the link.

Examining the Foundational Ideas of the French Constitution

David Marrani's Dynamics In the French Constitution: Decoding French Republican Ideas (Routledge, 2013) will be available in paperback on May 28, 2015). Here's a description of its contents from the publisher's website.

The promulgation of the Fifth French Republic Constitution in 1958 marked the end of a complex constitutional history that has since 1789 seen more than twenty constitutions and five Republics. Lasting now for more than fifty years, the Fifth Republic Constitution has proven to be the right settlement for the French people; a consensual text. However, while offering the appearance of stability, the Fifth French Republic Constitution has often been reconsidered and changed, not least in the year of its fiftieth anniversary, when the Constitution was 'modernised'. These dynamics of the Fifth Republic Constitution are neither a recent matter nor entirely the result of the successive constitutional amendments. Instead, the history of the Constitution has involved the resurgence of repressed archaic elements from the ancient regime, while the social, economic and environmental contexts have penetrated not only the text itself but more extensively its spirit, and behind it, the philosophy and our perception of the Republic. In Dynamics in the French Constitution, David Marrani questions the foundations of the French Fifth Republic. In using specific themes, current and traditional debates, contemporary and archaic factors, that have enlightened the road of long lasting Republic, the book explores some of the changes of the last fifty years and the tensions that are present within the constitutional text. In combining theoretical concepts of constitutional law with key contemporary and historical developments, such as the European integration, the response to environmental challenges, the practice of human rights and the pillars supporting French republicanism, this book offers varied and creative tools for a better understanding of the Republic of today.

Judicial Review In the Ancien Regime

Francesco Di Donato, University Parthenope of Napoli, has published La hiérarchie des normes dans l’ordre juridique, social et institutionnel de l’Ancien Régime (The Hierarchy of Norms in the Juridical, Social and Institutional Order of the Ancient Regime), at 21 Revus: Journal of Constitutional Theory and Philosophy of law 237 (2013). Here are the abstracts (French and English).  

 Le contrôle de constitutionnalité, dont la magistrature parlementaire de l’Ancien Régime revendiquait le plein droit, n’était pas fondé uniquement sur les lois fondamentales du royaume, mais sur l’ensemble des principes (les maximes) tirés de la Tradition. Cette dernière était composée en premier lieu par le droit divin et le droit naturel, c’est-à-dire par des systèmes juridiques qui nécessitaient, tous les deux, une interprétation juridictionnelle ‘sapientiale’. Cette activité interprétative était ‘révélatrice’ d’un corpus de valeurs métaphysiques à laquelle seule la Scientia Juris des magistrats pouvait puiser. Mais dans la sphère de la Tradition juridique rentraient aussi le dépôt légal, c’est-à-dire l’ensemble de toutes les lois, même des lois ainsi dites ordinaires, c’est-à-dire celles qui avaient été produites par la simple manifestation de volonté souveraine d’un roi prédécesseur car tel avait été son plaisir (moderne formulation du brocarde de droit romain: quidquid principi placuit legis habet vigorem). Ainsi la juridiction parlementaire donnait lieu à un jugement de constitutionnalité qui était normalement exercé de manière très flexible par le corps de la magistrature, dépendant des circonstances et des intérêts politiques momentanés des situations juridiques qu’elle voulait protéger. La hiérarchie des normes était ainsi un formidable instrument de protection de cet ordre juridique dont les legum doctores se sentaient les tuteurs. Elle était, donc, directement liée au gouvernement politique des juges.
The judicial review, to which the Ancient Regime’s parliamentary judiciary claimed full and unique right, was not only founded on the fundamental laws of the French kingdom, but also on a set of principles (les maximes) drawn from the Tradition. This Tradition was first of all composed of the divine law and the natural law, that is of legal systems both of which needed a judicial sapiencial interpretation. This interpretative activity provided revealing insight into the body of metaphysical values that only the magistrates’ Scientia Juris was able to draw on. However, the legal Tradition also included the dépôt légal, i.e., the totality of all laws, including, so to say, ordinary laws, that is to say statutes created as a result of the simple manifestation of the sovereign will of an earlier King car tel avait été son plaisir (modern formulation of the Roman expression: quidquid principi placuit legis habet vigorem). Thus, parliamentary jurisdiction used to give rise to judicial review that was usually exercised very flexibly by the Judiciary, i.e. depending on the circumstances and momentary political interests of the legal situations it wanted to protect. Thus, the hierarchy of norms was a remarkable instrument for protecting this legal order whose tutors were, according to their own opinion, legum doctores. And so the hierarchy of norms was directly connected with the political government of judges.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.