Download or read book Irregular Production and Time out of work in American Manufacturing Industry in 1870 and 1880 written by Jeremy Atack and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 38 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper makes use of hitherto untabulated data from the censuses of manufacturing for 1870 and 1880 to investigate the extent to which firms operated at less than their full capacity year round in these census years and thus provides some evidence of the extent to which workers may have faced temporary or permanent lay-off. We conclude that firms nationwide operated for the equivalent of 254 days (out of, perhaps, 309 working days) during the 1870 census year from the end of May, 1869 to the beginning of June, 1870 and 261 days during the 1880 census year from the beginning of June 1879 to the end of May, 1880. Workers put in the equivalent of slightly more days of work in each of these years in their customary industrial employment because larger firms were more likely to operate for more days per year. There were, however, significant regional and industry differences. Although our estimates are broadly consistent with independent estimates and are generally in accord with expectations, they raise important questions about economic performance in the late nineteenth century which remain unanswered here.
Download or read book The Extent of the Labor Market in the United States 1850 1914 written by Joshua L. Rosenbloom and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between the middle of the nineteenth century and the beginning of World War I improvements in transportation and communication encouraged increasing interregional and international economic integration. This paper traces and analyzes the progress of increasing labor market integration in the United States during this period of `globalization.' It argues that although the falling cost and increasing speed of transportation and communication in this period initiated a substantial expansion of labor market boundaries, the pattern of increasing integration was strikingly uneven. By the end of the nineteenth century, labor markets in the northern United States were part of a tightly integrated regional labor market that was in turn closely linked with labor markets in northern Europe. But this regional and international integration coincided with the persistent failure of integration between northern and southern labor markets within the United States. The importance of this finding is two-fold. First, it suggests that the forces shaping the determination of wages, the evolution of wage structure, and the growth of unions cannot be understood at either a purely local, or a purely national level. Second, it shows that the process of market integration was complex, depending on the interaction between historically determined market institutions and falling transportation and communication costs.
Download or read book The Entry Into the U S Labor Market of Antebellum European Immigrants 1840 60 written by Joseph P. Ferrie and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 58 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study examines the occupational mobility of antebellum immigrants as they entered the U.S. White collar, skilled, and semi-skilled immigrants left unskilled jobs more rapidly after arrival than farmers and unskilled workers. British and German immigrants fared better than the Irish; literate immigrants in rapidly growing counties and places with many immigrants fared best. These findings have implications for (1) the accuracy of estimates of immigrant occupational mobility; (2) the size of the human capital transfer resulting from antebellum immigration; and (3) the causes of the difficulty experienced by some immigrant groups in transferring their skills to the U.S.
Download or read book Strikebreaking and the Labor Market in the United States 1881 1894 written by Joshua L. Rosenbloom and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The American Business Elite in Historical Perspective written by Peter Temin and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper replicates a classic study of the American business elite. The older study done a half-century ago, reported the composition of business leaders a century ago. I have" drawn a sample of business leaders today to discover how much the composition of the" American business elite has changed. As in the earlier study, the business elite is compared to a" sample of political leaders. I find that democratization of the business elite has progressed only" slightly in the past century, nowhere near as much as democratization of the political elite." Despite the myriad things that have changed in America in the last century the business elite appears recognizably the same
Download or read book The Stability of the American Business Elite written by Peter Temin and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper begins the task of explaining why the American business elite has remained white, male and mostly native-born Protestants for a century, as verified in a previous paper (Temin, 1997). I argue that the evidence is inconsistent with the hypotheses that the stability is due to discrimination on the job or to principal-agent factors. The most likely explanation is that this demographic group makes the best business managers. I suggest that this in turn is not because they are inherently superior, but because they have had access to superior education, a result of past discrimination.
Download or read book Operations of unfettered Labor Markets written by Price Van Meter Fishback and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 90 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The American economy at the turn of the century offers an excellent opportunity to study the functioning of relatively unregulated labor markets.
Download or read book From Plowshares to Swords written by Hugh Rockoff and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper examines the U.S. economy in World War II. It argues that the mobilization must be viewed as a rapidly evolving historical process rather than, as is often the case a single undifferentiated event. For example, the employment of unemployed resources, a factor often cited to explain the success of the mobilization, was important during the national defense period, but was relatively unimportant during the period of active U.S. involvement. On the financial side, money creation was more important during the first year of active involvement than in subsequent years. The most significant legacy of the war, viewed in relation to the prosperous era that followed, may have been the change in the macroeconomic regime. The paper also discusses the limitations of the basic time series.
Download or read book A New Sample of Americans Linked from the 1850 Public Use Micro Sample of the Federal Census of Population to the 1860 Federal Census Manuscript Schedules written by Joseph P. Ferrie and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Fixing the Facts written by Susan B. Carter and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We argue that the enumerators' occupational returns from the important census of 1880 were heavily edited prior to publication. The effect was to substantially reduce the number of individuals reported with an occupation. For youthful and older males and all women the editing was so substantial as to qualitatively affect the apparent trend in labor force participation for these groups over time. The stylized facts regarding labor market dynamics during the period of American industrialization and the historical stories constructed around them will now need to be reexamined. We contend that the editing was secretly authorized by Francis Amasa Walker, Superintendent of the Tenth Census of 1880 and one of the most prominent and decorated economists, statisticians, and public servants in America at this time. While other scholars have identified potential sources of bias in census figures, no one has heretofore suggested that the official statistics of the United States were covertly altered to present a picture different from information collected by census enumerators. If we are correct, the sociology of official nineteenth-century American statistics will require rethinking.
Download or read book Historical Perspectives on the Economic Consequences of Immigration Into the United States written by Susan B. Carter and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 94 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper highlights the distinctive features of the theoretical approach taken by scholars who analyzed the impacts of the mass migration into the United States in the two decades preceding World War I. Broadly speaking, this literature was couched in terms of the aggregate production function, productivity change in factor proportions. Attention was focused on the close interrelatedness among the many diverse elements in the economy. A notable difference between the historical studies and the recent literature on the impacts of immigration is the propensity of the current literature to concentrate only on the first-round consequences. It is easy to show that these will be harmful to resident workers who face direct competition. Economic historians writing about the earlier period of high immigration went beyond the first-round effects. Taking a long-run perspective, they identified many aspects of the mass immigration that were beneficial from the point of view of the resident population.
Download or read book Manufacturing where Agriculture Predominates written by Kenneth Lee Sokoloff and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We employ the 1860 Census of Manufactures to study rural antebellum manufacturing in the South and Midwest, and find that manufacturing output per capita was similar across regions in counties specialized in the same agricultural products. The southern deficit in manufactures per capita appears to have been largely attributable to the very low levels of output in counties specialized in cotton production. This implies that it was the South's capabilities for the highly profitable cotton production, not the existence of slavery per se, that was responsible for the region's limited industrial development -- at least in rural areas. The other major finding is that in both the South and the Midwest measured total factor productivity was significantly lower in counties specialized in wheat (the most seasonal of agricultural products as regards labor requirements). This is consistent with suggestions that agricultural districts where the predominant crops were highly seasonal in their requirements for labor were well suited to support manufacturing enterprise during the offpeak periods.
Download or read book Percentiles of Modern Height Standards for Use in Historical Research written by Richard Hall Steckel and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Percentiles of modern height standards are useful in historical research because children differ systematically in height by age, and differences in growth potential exist by gender and might exist across some ethnic groups. Modern height standards are needed to make relative comparisons of nutritional status in these circumstances. The standards are also used to assess progress or deprivation against a level that we know is attainable under good environmental circumstances. Historical researchers in need of modern height standards encounter several problems, including the choice of standards, manipulation of those standards to meet the requirements of historical data, and calculation of percentiles. Following a discussion of criteria used in selecting standards, which lead to the choice of NCHS heights as a reference, the paper gives percentiles calculated in line with the requirements of historical data. Results are given in centimeters and inches and by age at last birthday and age at nearest birthday.
Download or read book Immigrants and Natives written by Joseph P. Ferrie and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Immigrants who arrived in the U.S. before the Civil War were less likely to reside in locations with high immigrant concentrations as their time in the U.S. increased. This is contrary to the experience of recent immigrants who show no decrease in concentration after arrival. The reduced isolation of antebellum immigrants was not due to their own movement to places with fewer immigrants but due to the movement of the native-born into places (particularly cities) with large immigrant concentrations. The isolation of contemporary immigrants even after several years in the U.S. thus results more from the reluctance of the native-born to relocate to places with many immigrants than from immigrants' reluctance to move to places with fewer immigrants. Contemporary immigrants had greater success than antebellum immigrants avoiding unskilled jobs as they entered the U.S. job market, though they moved out of unskilled jobs less often than antebellum immigrants when comparing their occupations at two points in time after arrival. Improvements in occupational mobility between antebellum and recent immigrants were most apparent among those in other than unskilled jobs. These findings suggest the need to reevaluate some of the premises upon which the concerns about the economic performance of recent immigrants are based.
Download or read book NBER Reporter written by National Bureau of Economic Research and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 590 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Efficiency Consequences of Institutional Change written by Stephen H. Haber and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper examines one of the central hypotheses of the New Institutional Economics: that the reform of institutions--the rules and regulations enforced by the State that both permit and bound the operation of markets--is crucial for the process of economic growth. It examines this hypothesis by estimating the productivity gain afforded to Brazilian textile firms by the reform of the regulations governing Brazil's securities markets in 1890. This analysis is based on panel data regressions on 18 firm-level censuses covering the period 1866-1934, which permit me to decompose total factor productivity growth. These censuses cover both limited liability joint stock corporations as well as privately owned firms. I also analyze corporate financial statements and stock market data for publicly held firms covering the period 1895-1940. The paper argues that the reform of the regulations pertaining to limited liability and mandatory disclosure permitted the widespread use of Brazil's debt and equity markets to mobilize capital for industry. This meant that the capital constraints faced by firms prior to the 1890's were relaxed. The result was an increased rate of investment, a decline in industrial concentration, and accelerated rates of growth of productivity.
Download or read book Two Views of the British Industrial Revolution written by Peter Temin and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are two views of the British Industrial Revolution in the literature today. The more traditional description, represented by the views of Ashton and Landes, sees the Industrial Revolution as a broad change in the British economy and society. This broad view of the Industrial Revolution has been challenged by Crafts and Harley who see the Industrial Revolution as a much narrower phenomenon, as the result of technical change in a few industries. This paper presents a test of these views using the Ricardian model of international trade with many goods. British trade data are used to implement the test and discriminate between the two views of the Industrial Revolution.
