On the basis of new historical research on the Soviet command system we analyze the choices of a plan-setter and an effort-setter who interacted with each other and an external market to determine real output, hidden inflation, and the quality of corruption. We show that the performance of the Soviet economy was affected not only by the level of corruption but also by its quality, that is, how corrupt incomes were used. Our results explain rapid Soviet economic growth despite high corruption levels, and why slower economic growth in the 1970s was accompanied by increased privatization of rents.

This article uses money order data to examine the determinants of British migrant remittances prior to 1914. Using panel data and cointegration analysis, it provides evidence of four distinct types of remittance behavior, lending support to Lucas and Stark's theory that remittances are driven by an implicit contract between remitter and remittee. The relative strengths of these different forms of remittance varied across the English-speaking world, with the largest differences occurring between migrants residing in America and those in the self-governing dominions. The explanation for these differences is seen to lie in the distinctive nature of British emigration to America.

Construction on the first commercial telegraph line in the United States began in 1845. Over the next 15 years, states promoted and regulated the industry through a variety of statutes. This article explores the patterns of telegraph legislation over time and across states. The patterns of telegraph legislation are shown to fit general regulatory patterns of economic activity during the nineteenth century.

The overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893 offers an illuminating case study of the political economy of preferential trading relationships between large and small countries. The limited-term reciprocity treaty of 1876 between Hawaii and the United States generated problematic strategic dynamics, as the normal operation of the treaty gradually worsened Hawaii’s bargaining position. This allowed the United States to extract better terms when the treaty expired in 1883 and to act opportunistically in 1890 with the passage of the McKinley Tariff. The political economy of the treaty contributed significantly to the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy.

This study draws upon a large sample of probated estates from early Connecticut and Massachusetts. It finds that total probate wealth per adult male grew slowly over the colonial period and its growth was confined entirely to real estate. The value of consumption goods per estate fell during the early eighteenth century which raises questions about the impact of economic growth on household life.

If we are successfully to relate our work with the main body of Economic History, we must be able to show the fundamental relationship between quantitative analysis and more conventional methods of economic historians. The historian reconstructs events of the past, and with them attempts to understand the institutions and modes of behavior associated with those events. He seeks to construct a consistent story revealing the fundamental nature and meaning to us of the past, thus creating insight into the past and understanding of it—something considerably beyond a mere account of what probably happened. However, this story must be based upon, and be consistent with, the reconstructed events of the past, “what probably happened.”

After the Civil War, Congress maintained high import tariffs to pay off the public debt. By the early 1880s the federal government was running large fiscal surpluses –revenues exceeded expenditures by over 40 percent. The Democrats proposed lower tariffs to reduce customs revenue. The Republicans proposed higher tariffs to reduce imports and customs revenues. This article attempts to determine the revenue effects of the proposed changes. Given the height of the tariff and the price elasticity of U.S. import demand, the actual tariff was below the maximum revenue rate, and therefore a tariff reduction would have reduced customs revenue.

The impact of protection on economic growth has enjoyed a revival in recent times, with the publication of a number of comparative quantitative papers. They all share a common weakness: they measure protection as the ratio of custom revenues to import value, which biases results if demand for imports is not perfectly inelastic. In this article, we show that the measure of protection matters. We estimate the James Anderson and Peter Neary (2005) Trade Restrictiveness Index for Italy from unification to the Great Depression. We suggest a different interpretation of some key moments of Italian trade policy and we show that the aggregate welfare losses were small in the long run and mostly related to protection on sugar in the 1880s and 1890s. We document that using different measures of protection affects results of the causal relation between trade policy on economic growth in Italy and in the United States. Accordingly, we argue that a systematic re-estimating of protection in the economic history of trade policy is needed.

By The end of the sixteenth century, the tendency in the OttomanEmpire toward the expansion of timariote properties or military fiefs is reversed, and quasi-private properties begin again to acquire ascendancy in the Balkans. To understand die process of reversal, one must bear in mind the separation of die properties administered by die timariote into two distinct categories, die raya-čiftlik and the hassa-čiftlik The raya-čiftlik was die property over which die peasant tenant had rights of usufruct. The hassa-čiftlik was the private farm or “proprietary nucleus” of the timariote. Slowly the timariote expands his hassa-čiftlik at die expense of die raya-čiftlik. This is possible because certain peasants become indebted to timariotes, others sell dieir right of usufruct, some leave no legal heirs behind them, and others abandon dieir lands to escape plague or famine or to avoid a census, die collection of taxes, or armies on die march.

Like the rest of the poor periphery, Mexico fought with de-industrialization in the century before the 1870s. Yet, Mexican manufacturing defended itself better than did the rest of the poor periphery. Why Mexican exceptionalism? This article decomposes the sources of de-industrialization into productivity events abroad, globalization forces connecting Mexico to those markets, and domestic forces. It uses a neo-Ricardian model to implement the decomposition, advocates a price dual approach, and develops a new price and wage data base. Mexican exceptionalism was due to weaker Dutch disease effects, better wage competitiveness, and the policy autonomy to foster industry.

It May have been the ingrained pessimism of Bentham and McCulloch that provoked Carlyle to dub economics the dismal science. It surely must have been economists' concern over price theory, which they regarded and still regard as the central core of economics, that made the name stick. Studies of the role of prices in history are no less tedious and technical than price theory, and in hands no more skillful than mine they can be even more dreary. But this is not the worst of my worries. The evidence that I shall sketch supports the pessimistic hypothesis that during certain germinal periods price and wage behavior of the type that is now taking a distressing percentage of real income from all of us who live on our salaries has proved beneficial to society in the long run and that the type of price and wage behavior which would benefit most of us in the short run has had serious disadvantages. Yet I have the inner satisfaction of appearing to be objective in my thinking and fearless in airing my conclusions in a gathering of some of the worst aggrieved.

This paper examines the behavior of the postal savings system in the Depression. It is shown that because the system was created with an inflexible structure it was unable to carry out its prescribed function when economic conditions changed in the Depression. Instead, the system evolved from a small-scale government program designed for the low-income saver into a financial force capable of causing problems for the savings and loan industry, the housing market, and even the banking system.

In prewar Japan, many banks were controlled by industrial companies through capital and personal relationships. The literature has pointed out that those banks engaged in unsound lending to their related companies, which resulted in damage to the financial system (organ bank hypothesis). In this article we examine this hypothesis by measuring director interlocking between banks and nonbanking companies. It was found that more than 80 percent of ordinary banks had director interlocking with at least one nonbanking company. Also, regression analyses confirmed that director interlocking had a negative effect on bank performance, especially for smaller banks.

Scholars interested in modern industrial economies have for years devoted substantial attention to the growth and performance of large-scale organizations. Many of their studies have been the intellectual heirs of Max Weber's brilliant analysis of bureaucracy, for it is the bureaucratic structure of authority which most often characterizes such organizations in the modern period. Economists, historians, and sociologists are all in debt to Weber for the basic ideas which have made the analysis of large-scale organizations so fruitful.

The development of new machinery in nineteenth-century American canning followed two paths. Automative, labor-saving devices were developed to replace labor in unskilled tasks while deskilling, human-capital-saving machinery was designed to make craft labor more replaceable. Cannery operators appear to have focused on deskilling machinery as the key to greater managerial control over production. Craft workers through organizational power and pressing for higher wages seem to have stimulated the early and sustained search for deskilling machinery. Because human-capital-saving machinery allowed wage cuts, they could be adopted prior to their being used as labor-saving devices.

The purpose of this study is to provide a quantitatively-based description of the main trends in the domestic structure and international position of the London money market during the eighteenth century. Using monthly data for the years 1731 to 1789, the findings supported the general hypothesis of the existence of a trend toward increased association between the money markets during the course of the century, but at the same time indicated variation in the inter-market relationships between sub-periods.

Having labored for many years in the fields of slavey research, I have learned to appreciate the challenges and complexities of the subject. My work has led me to change my assumptions and opinions on several questions, and the comment by Philip Coelho and Robert McGuire requires me to revisit my thoughts on explanations for the remarkable catch-up growth of American slaves.

Ongoing research on British overseas trade does not support supply-side explanations of British industrialization. Contrary to widely publicized views, the share of British industrial exports in alternative measures of industrial output rose almost continuously throughout the period 1723 to 1851. This finding rests on the official values of British domestic exports, and it is confirmed by new annual estimates of Britain's domestic export, and it is confirmed by new annual estimates of Britain's domestic export values at current an constant prices form 1772 to 1821. Further research on prices, and on Britain's strikingly underutilized trade records, may lead to a more balanced perception of supply and demand forces during the Industrial Revolution.

This paper describes two contrary developments in corporate finance during the Great Depression. In 1930s downswings the top one percent of firms acquired unusually high rations of liquid assets to receipts, thus withdrawing funds from the spending stream. Smaller firms, however, were forced into highly illiquid positions (by postwar standards) by episodes of monetary restriction in 1931 and 1937. It is argued that both developments made the Depression more severe. A structural change is found after 1945 in the financial behavior of large firms. This is attributed to a new cyclical pattern of price change and lower business uncertainty during postwar recessions.

Governments frequently establish institutions to govern the transition in property rights when they acquire territory or experience radical changes in political regimes. By examining a specific example—the United States' acquisition of California from Mexico in 1848, this article investigates general questions about these institutions and institutional choice. The article fmds that the specific institution that Congress chose for California best balanced the interests of the federal government, American owners of land grants, and American squatters and settlers. Further, despite the lobbying, litigation, and delay associated with the institution, the institution was more efficient than prior institutions.