Antebellum Puzzle

Author(s):  
Lee A. Craig

Since the late 18th century the long-run trend in economic growth—conventionally measured by real gross domestic product, income, and wages—has been positive in the United States and throughout Europe. However, in the 19th century, many Western countries, including the United States, experienced stagnation and even cyclical downturns in the biological standard of living—as measured by, for example, the expectation of life and adult stature—thus creating the “antebellum puzzle,” so named because the downturn began in the decades before the US Civil War. This puzzle suggests that industrialization and modern economic growth were accompanied by an increase in inequality and a decrease in the consumption of net nutrients.

2019 ◽  
Vol 79 (4) ◽  
pp. 1129-1153 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Komlos ◽  
Brian A'Hearn

Bodenhom, Guinnane, and Mroz (2017) are critical of anthropometric research using based on non-random samples. Declining height trends in military and prison data, they argue, are artifacts of negative selection during favorable labor market conditions. We study height trends in the United States in the antebellum decades, which coincided with the onset of modem economic growth. We find that neither the historical evidence nor their own statistical analysis support their views. The decline in physical stature in the decades before the Civil War was real, as Zimran (2019) has also shown.


Author(s):  
Kirk Hawkins

Donald Trump’s victory in the US 2016 presidential election awakened many US scholars to the existence of populism. However, the study of populism is old news for political scientists in Latin America and other regions. Since at least the 1960s, scholars in these regions have dealt with key conceptual, methodological, and theoretical issues in the study of populism, covering instances of populism that have appeared since the inception of liberal, representative democracy in the late 18th century. This wealth of scholarship is an aid to mainstream scholars in the United States and other wealthy democracies as they grapple with the impact of populist forces, providing them with tools for measuring populism and for studying its causes and consequences. However, there are also lessons for scholars in regions that have studied populism much longer. This is especially true for Latin America. Senior Latin Americanists who engage with populism have a tendency to rely on older approaches and methods that have not withstood empirical tests in other regions. Some researchers are unaware that comparative, cross-regional scholarship has arrived at a rough consensus about the nature of populist ideas, and that the cross-regional study of populist discourse has moved beyond the anti-positivist bent of some early work. Thus, this bibliography walks a fine line between highlighting the foundational work of earlier scholars, particularly those studying Latin America, while introducing current Latin Americanists to the work being done outside the region. A concluding section highlights the unique scholarly contributions to the study of populism in the United States, contributions that provide an important touchstone to Latin Americanists, not to mention mainstream scholars in the United States.


Author(s):  
Thomas Weiss

In the early 21st century, the U.S. economy stood at or very near the top of any ranking of the world’s economies, more obviously so in terms of gross domestic product (GDP), but also when measured by GDP per capita. The current standing of any country reflects three things: how well off it was when it began modern economic growth, how long it has been growing, and how rapidly productivity increased each year. Americans are inclined to think that it was the last of these items that accounted for their country’s success. And there is some truth to the notion that America’s lofty status was due to the continual increases in the efficiency of its factors of production—but that is not the whole story. The rate at which the U.S. economy has grown over its long history—roughly 1.5% per year measured by output per capita—has been modest in comparison with most other advanced nations. The high value of GDP per capita in the United States is due in no small part to the fact that it was already among the world’s highest back in the early 19th century, when the new nation was poised to begin modern economic growth. The United States was also an early starter, so has experienced growth for a very long time—longer than almost every other nation in the world. The sustained growth in real GDP per capita began sometime in the period 1790 to 1860, although the exact timing of the transition, and even its nature, are still uncertain. Continual efforts to improve the statistical record have narrowed down the time frame in which the transition took place and improved our understanding of the forces that facilitated the transition, but questions remain. In order to understand how the United States made the transition from a slow-growing British colony to a more rapidly advancing, free-standing economy, it is necessary to know more precisely when it made that transition.


2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-185
Author(s):  
Edyta Sokalska

The reception of common law in the United States was stimulated by a very popular and influential treatise Commentaries on the Laws of England by Sir William Blackstone, published in the late 18th century. The work of Blackstone strengthened the continued reception of the common law from the American colonies into the constituent states. Because of the large measure of sovereignty of the states, common law had not exactly developed in the same way in every state. Despite the fact that a single common law was originally exported from England to America, a great variety of factors had led to the development of different common law rules in different states. Albert W. Alschuler from University of Chicago Law School is one of the contemporary American professors of law. The part of his works can be assumed as academic historical-legal narrations, especially those concerning Blackstone: Rediscovering Blackstone and Sir William Blackstone and the Shaping of American Law. Alschuler argues that Blackstone’s Commentaries inspired the evolution of American and British law. He introduces not only the profile of William Blackstone, but also examines to which extent the concepts of Blackstone have become the basis for the development of the American legal thought.


Author(s):  
Aref Emamian

This study examines the impact of monetary and fiscal policies on the stock market in the United States (US), were used. By employing the method of Autoregressive Distributed Lags (ARDL) developed by Pesaran et al. (2001). Annual data from the Federal Reserve, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund, from 1986 to 2017 pertaining to the American economy, the results show that both policies play a significant role in the stock market. We find a significant positive effect of real Gross Domestic Product and the interest rate on the US stock market in the long run and significant negative relationship effect of Consumer Price Index (CPI) and broad money on the US stock market both in the short run and long run. On the other hand, this study only could support the significant positive impact of tax revenue and significant negative impact of real effective exchange rate on the US stock market in the short run while in the long run are insignificant. Keywords: ARDL, monetary policy, fiscal policy, stock market, United States


1997 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Albert R. Coll

As of 1997, the United States faces an unprecedented degree of security, stability, and economic prosperity in its relations with Latin America. Never before have US strategic interests in Latin America been as well-protected or have its prospects seemed, at least on the surface, so promising. Yet while the US strategic interests are in better shape — militarily, politically, and economically — this decade than at any time since the end of the Second World War, some problems remain. Over the long run, there is also the risk that old problems, which today seem to have ebbed away, will return. Thus, the positive tone of any contemporary assessment must be tempered with an awareness of remaining areas of concern as well as of possible future crises.


Author(s):  
Brandi L Holley ◽  
Dale L. Flesher

ABSTRACT: The 19th century brought on much economic growth and advancement in accounting in the United States. The teaching of accounting began to veer away from rules and instead sought the logical underpinnings of the system. It was a time when accounting evolved into accountancy through the development of theory, such as the proprietary theory and the theory of two-account series. The Townsend Journal (1840-1841), which chronicles the joint venture between two young men in the Boston maritime trade, is a case study of this progression in commerce and accounting during this pivotal time. B. F. Foster's contemporaneous Boston publications on bookkeeping provide the framework to understand this evolution in accountancy, as well as the recordings in the Townsend Journal. Through the examination of the Townsend Journal alongside B. F. Foster's texts, this paper preserves and illustrates a historical link in the evolution of the field.


Author(s):  
Michael Pammer

Income Growth and Distribution. This chapter describes economic growth and the distribution of income and wealth. Data on income are available from the last years of the 19th century onwards, whereas data on wealth are available for the entire century. Of all the Austrian lands, Lower Austria had the highest productivity, the earliest shift from agriculture to other sectors, and the largest wealth. It is a prime example of regions where the income distribution tends to widen from the beginnings of modern economic growth onwards. From the turn of the century on, however, the distribution tends to narrow again. The main reason for these changes lies in the differences in distribution structures between agriculture and the other sectors. Changes in income differentials between branches, or groups in the vertical order of branches, have less impact. The same pattern (growing inequality when a region is more developed) is also visible in synchronous comparisons between regions in different stages of economic development.


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