Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T20:59:58.125Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Failed Cooperation in Heterogeneous Industries Under the National Recovery Administration

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Barbara J. Alexander
Affiliation:
Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA, 02181.

Abstract

A case study, a formal model, and an anaLysis of Census of Manufactures data support a conclusion that cost heterogeneity was a major source of the “compliance crisis” affecting a number of National Recovery Administration “codes of fair competition.” Key elements of the argument are assumptions that progressives at the NRA allowed majority coalitions of small, high-cost finns to impose codes in heterogeneous industries, and that these codes were designed by the high-cost firms under an ultimately erroneous belief that they would be enforced by the NRA.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1997

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Alexander, Barbara J.The Impact of the National Industrial Recovery Act on Cartel Formation and Maintenance Costs.” The Review of Economics and Statistics 76, no.2 (1994): 245–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alexander, Barbara J. “The Rational Racketeer: Pasta Protection in Depression-era Chicago.” The Journal of Law and Economics, forthcoming (1997).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bellush, Bernard. The Failure of the NRA. New York: Norton, 1975.Google Scholar
Brand, Donald. Corporatism and the Rule of Law: a Study of the National Recovery Administration. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carlton, Dennis, and Jeffrey, Perloff. Modern Industrial Organization. 2d ed.New York:Harper Collins, 1994.Google Scholar
Chandler, Lester V.America’s Greatest Depression 1929–1941. New York: Harper and Row, 1970.Google Scholar
Hawley, Ellis. The New Deal and the Problem of Monopoly, a Study in Economic Ambivalence. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harrington, Joseph E. JrThe Determination of Price and Output Quotas in a Heterogeneou s Cartel.” Intern ational Economic Review 32, no.4, (1991) 767–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hummel, Charles. Macaroni Products: Manufacture, Processing & Packing. London: Food Trade Press, 1950.Google Scholar
Lyon, Leveren S.The National Recovery Administration: An Analysis and Appraisal. New York: DaCapo Press Reprint Series, 1972, (reprint of 1935 edition issued by the Brookings Institution).Google Scholar
Lewis, Mayers, ed. A Handbook of NRA. 2d ed.New York and Washington, DC: Federal Codes Inc., 1934.Google Scholar
Roos, Charles. NRA Economic Planning. New York: Da Capo Press edition, 1971, (first published in 1937 by Cowles Commission for Research in Economics).Google Scholar
Schlesinger, Arthur. The Age of Roosevelt. Vol 2. The Coming of the New Deal. Boston:Houghton Muffin, 19571960.Google Scholar
Shiavo, Giovanni E.The Italians in Chicago: A Study in Americanization. New York: Arno Press, 1975, (first published by the Italian American Publishing Co., Chicago, 1928).Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census. Eighth Biennial Census of Manufactures (1935). Washington, DC: GPO, 1935.Google Scholar
U.S. National Archive. Record Group 9, Records of the National Recovery Administration, Consolidated Approved Code Industry File: Macaroni Industry, Code 234; cited in notes as USRG9.Google Scholar