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Presents an abstract of a conference paper on public utility ownership in the U.S. in the 19th century.

Presents an abstract of a conference paper on the public ownership of the U.S. waterworks from 1897 to 1915.

The Mexican expropriation of 1938 was the first large-scale non-Communist expropriation of foreign-owned natural resource assets. The literature makes three assertions: the United States did not fully back the companies, Mexico did not fully compensate them for the value of their assets, and the oil workers benefitted from the expropriation. This article finds that none of those assertions hold. The companies devised political strategies that maneuvered a reluctant President Roosevelt into supporting their interests, and the Mexican government more than fully compensated them as a result. Neither wages for oil workers nor Mexican government oil revenue rose after the expropriation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Many states nationalized portions of their railroad network between 1860 and 1912. This article uses new cross-country data to examine which factors contributed to nationalizations and how nationalizations influenced network expansion. I find evidence that nationalizations were greater in countries with low constraints on the executive branch, with French and German civil law systems, and where neighboring countries had higher military capability. I also find evidence that nationalizations reduced mileage growth. The results suggest that external military threats increased the appeal of nationalizations, while legal and political institutions influenced their costs. They also suggest that nationalizations reduced investment incentives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]