The Impact of War on Resource Allocation: “Creative Destruction,” Patenting, and the American Civil War

2015 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 315-353 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Zorina Khan
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Technological Innovation ◽  
Opportunity Cost ◽  
Technological Progress ◽  
Aggregate Demand ◽  
American Civil War ◽  
Allocation Of Resources ◽  
Exogenous Shock ◽  
High Opportunity Cost ◽  
The Impact

The large exogenous shock to labor and capital markets, aggregate demand, the distribution of expenditures, and the rate and direction of technological innovation that war often causes can lead to substantial changes in the allocation of resources. Empirical evidence reveals a significant misallocation of resources during the American Civil War, as a result of reduced geographical mobility, greater incentives for individuals with high opportunity cost to switch into the market for military technologies, and decreased financial returns to inventors. However, the rapid economic recovery that ensued after the end of the war suggests that the misallocation was only temporary, not long inhibiting the capacity for future technological progress.

Losing the Thread

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jim Powell
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
American Civil War ◽  
Full Length ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Cotton Trade

Losing the Thread is the first full-length study of the effect of the American Civil War on Britain’s raw cotton trade and on the Liverpool cotton market. It details the worst crisis in the British cotton trade in the 19th century. Before the civil war, America supplied 80 per cent of Britain’s cotton. In August 1861, this fell to almost zero, where it remained for four years. Despite increased supplies from elsewhere, Britain’s largest industry received only 36 per cent of the raw material it needed from 1862 to 1864. This book establishes the facts of Britain’s raw cotton supply during the war: how much there was of it, in absolute terms and in relation to the demand, where it came from and why, how much it cost, and what effect the reduced supply had on Britain’s cotton manufacture. It includes an enquiry into the causes of the Lancashire cotton famine, which contradicts the historical consensus on the subject. Examining the impact of the civil war on Liverpool and its cotton market, the book disputes the historic portrayal of Liverpool as a solidly pro-Confederate town. It also demonstrates how reckless speculation infested and distorted the raw cotton market, and lays bare the shadowy world of the Liverpool cotton brokers, who profited hugely from the war while the rest of Lancashire starved.

Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Jim Powell
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
American Civil War ◽  
Full Length ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Specific Reference ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Cotton Trade

This chapter describes the objectives of the book. No full-length work exists on the crisis in the British cotton trade during the American Civil War, and the only substantial study of the raw cotton market in Liverpool was made by Thomas Ellison 130 years ago. The book remedies these omissions. It has two objectives. First, to establish the factual record of Britain’s raw cotton supply during the civil war. Second, to examine the impact of the civil war on Liverpool, and on the operation of the raw cotton trade there, with specific reference to the role of the cotton brokers. The chapter discusses the existing historiography and its deficiencies, and describes the primary sources that underpin this study. It establishes the crucial, and neglected, importance of price to the trade in raw cotton.

Ontological security and the power of self-identity: British neutrality and the American Civil War

2005 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 519-540 ◽  
Author(s):  
BRENT J STEELE
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
International Relations ◽  
American Civil War ◽  
Ontological Security ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
Alternative Framework ◽  
Ir Studies ◽  
Emancipation Proclamation ◽  
The Impact

Why did Great Britain remain neutral during the American Civil War? Although several historical arguments have been put forth, few studies have explicitly used International Relations (IR) theories to understand this decision. Synthesising a discursive approach with an ontological security interpretation, I propose an alternative framework for understanding security-seeking behaviour and threats to identity. I assess the impact Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation had upon the interventionist debates in Great Britain. I argue that the Proclamation reframed interventionist debates, thus (re)engendering the British anxiety over slavery and removing intervention as a viable policy. I conclude by proposing several issues relevant to using an ontological security interpretation in future IR studies.

Benjamin Drew and Samuel Gridley Howe on Race Relations in Early Ontario: Mythologizing and Debunking Canada West’s “Moral Superiority”

2021 ◽  
pp. e20200025
Author(s):  
Donna Palmateer Pennee
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Race Relations ◽  
Black People ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Civil War ◽  
National Differences ◽  
Historical Presence ◽  
Moral Superiority ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Canada West

This essay examines the respective mythologizing and debunking of Canada’s “moral superiority” over the United States on matters of white-Black race relations in Benjamin Drew’s 1856 The Refugee: or the Narratives of Fugitive Slaves in Canada and Samuel Gridley Howe’s 1864 The Refugees from Slavery in Canada West. Their accounts of the impact of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and American Civil War on Canadian and American political reputations are instructive. The historical presence of Black people in the making of Ontario’s history and its relationship to American ante-bellum history helps to understand in part from where the superiority myth originates. The impact of the American Civil War on the making of Canada as a political entity has been studied by historians but its cultural force is less studied, particularly in literary studies. The relative absence of such knowledge seems part and parcel of the negative definition of Canada as not-American, indeed anti-American, and has helped to continue the mythology of Canada’s moral superiority over the US on matters of white-Black relations. Drew’s and Howe’s work on the substantial presence of Black settlers in early Ontario has been invaluable for the study of both the diaspora and settlement of Black freedom seekers in Upper Canada/Canada West in the antebellum period. Analysis of the rhetoric of national differences on racism in Drew’s The Refugee (1856) and Howe’s The Refugees (1864), particularly on education and law, counters, as does a wealth of scholarship by Black scholars, the myth of Canada’s racial benevolence.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document