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A Republican Congress reduced the estimates submitted by the Administration almost three billion dollars. Greater economies could have been effected had it not been for the stubborn refusal of the [...]

[Government paternalism] is the bane of republican institutions and the constant peril of our government by the people. It degrades to the purposes of wily craft the plan of rule [...]

THE IDEA OF A 'RUST BELT,' an area of the United States encompassing a stretch of land from New York to Illinois marked by large amounts of industrial closure, points [...]

This essay examines the reaction of the Gerald Ford administration to the deepening recession of the mid-1970s and the unprecedented challenges of stagflation. This includes an analysis of the decision-making process within the White House, the administration's relationship with Congress, and the abandonment of almost 40 years of Keynesian orthodoxy that would see President Ford introduce a new conservative economic agenda as he sought to adapt traditional Republican economics to deal with new economic circumstances. In short, I argue that Ford was far more than the 'accidental' or 'caretaker' president that popular history recalls., The reactions of politicians and the media to the death of Gerald R. Ford, the thirty-eighth president of the United States, were almost universal in their predictability. Terms such as [...]

The essay discusses the actions and motivations of various groups that tried to end the practice of double feature film exhibition in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s. Used as a price-cutting strategy, double features were embraced by marginal exhibitors and low-budget producers, but attacked by most major studios and established theatre chains. Methods employed to control the double feature included voluntary bans, governmental legislation, and legal action. During the depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal opposed the double feature as a strategy likely to undermine established admission price levels. But the double feature proved resilient and survived all these efforts, as well as an additional series of assaults, based on conservation of energy and materiel, mounted during the Second World War. Keywords: Motion Picture Exhibition; Double Features; National Industrial Recovery Act., For decades, the double feature existed as a standard programming practice in America. Two films for the price of one: that was the simple formula that led to the double [...]

This piece examines the role of Indios Barbaros, migrant Indians, and independent Indians after Mexican Independence and how their demographic and strategic positions influenced the direction and ultimate implementation of racialized immigration-cum-colonization policies during the nineteenth century. Many intellectuals argued that one of the primary reasons for dramatic U.S. economic growth and aggressive westward expansion was the arrival of European immigrants, an aspect of which Mexico also sought to capitalize on. Bur unlike its neighbors Mexico received few of these immigrants because of restrictive policies influenced by unsuccessful colonization schemes and three Spanish expulsions. These conclusions contradict a view in the immigration and colonization historiography that suggests these policies were implemented to 'whiten' the populations like those in Argentina or Brazil. Mexico's immigration policies emerged in large part as a way to incorporate the majority of the indigenous populace into the larger 'Mexican family' but also as a way to 'Mexicanize' communities outside of state control. Este articulo examina el papel de los Indios Barbaros, indios migratorios, e indios independientes despues de la Independencia de Mexico, y como sus posiciones demograficas y estrategicas influyeron en la direccion y la implementacion de las politicas raciales en la inmigracion y colonizacion durante el siglo diecinueve. Muchos intelectuales sostuvieron que uno de los motivos principales del rapido crecimiento economico cstadounidense y su expansion agresiva hacia el Oeste era la llegada de los inmigrantes europeos, un aspecto del que Mexico tambien queria capitalizar. Pero a diferencia de sus vecinos, Mexico recibio a pocos de estos inmigrantes debido a politicas restrictivas bajo la influencia de esquemas de colonizacion fracasados y tres expulsiones espanolas. Estas conclusiones contradicen una idea de la historiografia migratoria y de colonizacion que sugiere que estas politicas fueron puestas en practica para 'blanquear' las poblaciones como en Argentina o Brasil. Las politicas de inmigracion de Mexico no solo emergieron en gran parte como un modo de incorporar a la mayoria del pueblo indigena a la 'gran familia mexicana', sino tambien como un modo de 'mexicanizar' a comunidades que estaban fuera del control estatal. Key words: Colonization Laws, Immigration Policies, Indios Barbaros, European Immigration, Intellectuals anal Indians, Simon Tadeo Ortiz de Ayala, Demography, Junta Provisional Gubernativa, Juan Francisco de Azcarate, Indians and Colonization. Palabras clave: Leyes de colonizacion, politicas migratorias, Indios Barbaros, inmigracion europea, intelectuales e indigenas, Simon Tadeo Ortiz de Ayala, demografia, Junta Provisional Gnbernativa, Juan Francisco de Azcarate, indigenas y colonizacion. DOI: 10.1525/msem.2010.26.2.291

Using nonlinear monetary policy rules estimated under Martin, Burns/Miller, Volcker and Greenspan chairmanships this paper evaluates quantitatively how monetary policy under Burns/Miller would have differed, if it had been conducted by means of the policy rules found for each of the other three chairs. The main results are that if policy had been conducted by means of a Volcker-type rule, it would have been uniformly more restrictive; and if it had been conducted by means of a Greenspan-type rule, it would have been less restrictive. These results are robust to the introduction of real-time data. The paper also evaluates the impact of inflation uncertainty on monetary policy. Real-time Greenbook inflation forecasts reveal that, during the great inflation period, the Fed's staff believed that monetary policy was more restrictive than it turned out to be with the benefit of hindsight. The opposite happened during inflation stabilization under Volcker. Comparative Economic Studies (2010) 52, 159-179. doi: 10.1057/ces.2010.9 Keywords: monetary policy rules, great inflation, Burns, Volcker, Greenspan JEL Classifications: E52, E58, N12, INTRODUCTION The great inflation of the 1970s and its aftermath under Volcker is one of the most traumatic events of US economic history during the second half of the twentieth [...]

Recent events highlight the importance of examining the impact of economic downturns on population health. The Great Depression of the 1930s was the most important economic downturn in the U.S. in the twentieth century. We used historical life expectancy and mortality data to examine associations of economic growth with population health for the period 1920-1940. We conducted descriptive analyses of trends and examined associations between annual changes in health indicators and annual changes in economic activity using correlations and regression models. Population health did not decline and indeed generally improved during the 4 years of the Great Depression, 1930-1933, with mortality decreasing for almost all ages, and life expectancy increasing by several years in males, females, whites, and nonwhites. For most age groups, mortality tended to peak during years of strong economic expansion (such as 1923, 1926, 1929, and 1936-1937). In contrast, the recessions of 1921, 1930-1933, and 1938 coincided with declines in mortality and gains in life expectancy. The only exception was suicide mortality which increased during the Great Depression, but accounted for less than 2% of deaths. Correlation and regression analyses confirmed a significant negative effect of economic expansions on health gains. The evolution of population health during the years 1920-1940 confirms the counterintuitive hypothesis that, as in other historical periods and market economies, population health tends to evolve better during recessions than in expansions. longevity | mortality | United States doi/ 10.1073/pnas.0904491106

DURING THE FIRST HALF of the twentieth century, the introduction of aluminum induced a major transformation in the cookware manufacturing industry in the United States. In 1900 only five percent [...]

The relationship between business forecasting and business cycle theory is discussed.

The experimental research on riskless choices that was done in the years 1930-1970 in connection with the developments in consumer demand analysis is explored.

TO START A REVIEW ESSAY IN EARLY MODERN ECONOMIC HISTORY WITH A phrase associated with Bishop George Berkeley, one of that era's foremost immaterialists, is both ironic and depressing. But [...]

The business community in the United States forged an alliance with the religious Right in 1970s and ever since then there is a divergence in the trajectories of market societies between the United States and Western Europe. A neo-Polanyian theoretical framework is suggested to understand the dynamics within contemporary market societies because it effectively identifies the key mechanisms that drive the developmental trajectories of contemporary market societies.

A series of productivity studies published in the mid-1920s provide an excellent example of the fact that the consequences of the creation of new economic data may be accidents publication of a series of productivity studies in the mid-1920s. The new productivity data, collected to provide insight into one area of public and professional interest, had the unintended consequence of contributing to the start of the technological unemployment debates that occupied popular and professional economic attention for the next twenty years.

The first consumer revolution set in motion a long term process of incremental change in what people used, valued and accumulated in ordinary goods where America ushered in the most dramatic consumer revolution in the history of the nation that affected the New and Old Worlds alike. Focusing on the rural Middle Atlantic, examining consumer culture in the 1760s, and then tracing that culture into the early nineteenth century demonstrates that the market, through 1820, never overwhelmed people.

The most successful economies of modern, and perhaps earlier, economic history appear to have had 'financial revolutions' that created innovative financial systems before they became leading economies. This suggests that good financial systems may have played a causal role in economic modernization. I identify the key institutional components of such financial systems. Using the United States and Japan as examples, I discuss how two financial revolutions occurred. Effective leadership on the part of strong-willed individuals was crucial in each case.

This paper explains the rise and fall of stagflation between 1960 and 1998 in terms of the fall and rise of the cyclically-corrected profit rate as part of a preliminary investigation. Not only is the theory presented and compared to mainstream visions of the Natural Rate of Unemployment, but empirical evidence for my thesis is marshaled.

State personal income per capita estimates at six census years are adjusted for state differences in prices and labor input per capita. Decomposition of the variation in state nominal income levels into the contributions of prices, demography, and (residual) labor productivity reveals considerable diversity in the relative importance of each by region and period. Convergence rates across the century differ according to the choice of series (nominal income, price-adjusted income, or productivity). The West and the South play crucial roles in regional convergence, but at different times.

A study was conducted to analyze economic growth in the US since 1870. Multi-factor productivity growth determined from inputs combining simple measures of labor hours and the capital stock and growth was examined. Results indicated that productivity in the 20th century was spearheaded by inventions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These inventions can be categorized into four classifications, namely, electricity, internal-combustion engines, 'rearranging molecules,' and communications/entertainment.

This article examines the impact of what is undoubtedly the most important monetary regime change in U.S. history: the founding of the Federal Reserve System. We find, using a (G)ARCH model, a significant reduction in interest rate uncertainty following the founding of the Fed. Additionally, we show that the passage of the Aldrich-Vreeland Act in 1908, another significant change in policy, also led to a reduction in interest rate uncertainty. These results are robust to alternative interest rate models, as well as to incorporating the impact of other events important to financial markets in our sample.

The impact of the unanticipated and undesirable outflows of gold stocks on the banking system during the National Banking Era was analyzed. The effects of the gold shocks had a direct impact on interest rates, prices of stocks related to gold movements and liquidity which were often forecasted using the behavior of real and financial variables. It was established that changes in gold stocks and subsequent gold shocks affected stock prices and interest rates although these changes had a positive effect on the supply of nongold high-power money.

Between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the regions of the United States went from a set of relatively isolated regional economies to an integrated national economy. Economic integration, as well as long-ran secular changes in the economic structure associated with economic growth, played an important role in determining U.S. regional industrial structures. Moreover, although differences in regional industrial structures do not explain all the variations in regional income per capita, they played an important role in causing U.S. regional incomes to diverge and converge between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Using annual data on nationally chartered U.S. and Canadian banks from 1929 to 1989, this article empirically evaluates the impact of various regulations on bank profitability. An intercountry comparison reveals that the less restrictive regulatory environment in Canada has historically resulted in higher bank profits. Specifically, higher leverage, greater securities investment and lending opportunities, and the freedom to establish branch units all significantly contribute to higher bank profitability in Canada. Evidence presented also shows that U.S. banks would have been more profitable over the sample period in a regulatory environment similar to Canada's.

A historical approach in studying the association between infrastructure investment and the economic development of the US is employed has concentrated on the transportation and sanitation systems. Direct and indirect reactions are generated by infrastructure investment. Modern projections employing common data establish that public infrastructure investment has possible powerful effects on private economic undertakings.