Students of Russia's first phase of industrialization concentrate on the real aspects of growth—the growth of population, production, and the change in industrial structure. In this they follow the traditional approach to economic history, which usually emphasizes the real variables of the growth process at the expense of the money variables. I do not propose to question the assumption that the study of the production aspect of an economy is a sine qua non of the analysis of industrialization. Yet the exclusion of factors that affect aggregate demand may lead to a failure to observe some important dimensions of growth. In any case, the relevance of money in Russia's first “Industrial Revolution,” which was underway in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, was considerable. Therefore, in what follows, I concentrate on the monetary developments and policies of this period. After a short survey of the quantitative information on the trends of the real variables, monetary developments and their impact on economic activity are studied. I then treat Russia's foreign trade and balance of payments and their links to monetary phenomena, and finally, make an attempt at a critical evaluation of the trade, monetary and fiscal policies of the Russian government in this period.

The ensuing remarks are addressed to two topics which seem to me important: (a) what conflicts, if any, are there between business history and economic history; and (b) how can research in the two areas be mutually helpful.

In the history of federal aid to transportation in the United States the land grants given to assist in the construction of canals have been almost completely overshadowed by the far more munificent land subsidies to the railroads. The disparity between the two is, indeed, striking: the canals received altogether about 4,500,000 acres, as against the approximately 130,000,000 acres which ultimately passed to the railroads. Nevertheless, the importance of the canal grants is not to be judged solely by the amount of land involved. To the extent that they were effective they contributed to the building of waterways, the influence of which on the economic development of the Middle West was considerably greater than is generally appreciated today. The Ohio canals, for example, are credited with stimulating the growth of that state in a way comparable to the impetus given New York by the Erie Canal; the Wabash and Erie Canal in Indiana, chronically insolvent as it was, produced, within ten years of its opening, a fivefold increase in the population of the counties that it traversed; and the historian of the Illinois and Michigan Canal asserts that this waterway “not only transformed a wilderness into a settled and prosperous community, but it made Chicago the metropolis of the Mississippi Valley.” The natural enthusiasm of authors for their subject may require some discounting of these claims, but not enough, in the face of the evidence that is offered to support them, to detract seriously from the significance of the land-grant canals.

The U.S. Constitution removed real and monetary trade barriers between the states. By contrast, these states when they were British colonies exercised considerable real and monetary sovereignty over their borders. Purchasing power parity is used to measure how much economic integration between the states was gained in the decades after the Constitution's adoption compared with what existed among the same locations during the late colonial period. Using this measure, the short-run effect of the Constitution on economic integration was minimal. This may have been because the Constitution did not eliminate all the institutional barriers to interstate trade before 1812.

In this article we investigate the possibility that a regulatory regime designed to maximize the profitability of the early Dutch whaling industry could have simultaneously guaranteed the biological sustainability of the eastern Arctic Bowhead whale. We find that policies with economic profit as the sole objective could have saved the whales, as well as increasing the incomes of the whalers, under assumptions commonly made in fisheries models. However, the necessary assumptions are implausible. Under more historically relevant assumptions we find that regulation could not have simultaneously increased profits and preserved the stock of whales.

The bibliography of this subject is the subject, and the enormous filescourse of over three centuries are formidability itself. To reduce the element of formidability it is necessary to turn to studies of the newspaper in terms of countries, regions, owners, editors and journalists. But again the bibliography reflects the character of the press. Newspapermen have contributed notably, but unfortunately the training in newspaper work is not ideal for an economic interpretation of the subject. The increasing participation of university graduates in journalism provides a basis for more objective studies, but even here the training.exercises a subtle influence and weakens the possibility of a sustained and effective interpretation. Throughout the history of the newspaper industry, studies reflect the dominant influence of the moment, or perhaps it is safer to say, represent the dominant influence of the tradition of the industry; hence they show a perceptible lag between the newspaper as it is and the newspaper as it was. In the main they are obsessed with the role of the press in relation to political opinion, the importance of freedom of the press, the fourth estate and so on; they are suffused with innumerable cliches1 constantly bubbling up from the effervescence of writing.

When he became Her Majesty's Secretary of State for the Colonies in the Unionist government of 1895, Joseph Chamberlain was already the acknowledged leader of those who believed that Britain would most surely safeguard her military and economic future through closer links with the Empire and the extension of its boundaries. Yet a mere fifteen years before he had played an important part in the campaign against Disraeli's imperialist designs that had swept the Liberals back to power. The change in Chamberlain's political fortunes as a result of the Home Rule controversy needs no recapitulation here. More interesting is the process by which he was won over to those very ideas of imperial consolidation that Disraeli had propounded so frequently.

One important, but overlooked, risk mitigation device that facilitated the growth of the slave trade in the eighteenth century was the increasing availability of insurance for ships and their human cargoes. In this article we explore, for the first time, the relative cost of insurance for British slave traders, the underlying processes by which this key aspect of the business of slavery was conducted, and the factors behind price and other changes over time. Comparisons are also drawn with the transatlantic slave trades of other nations. As well as analyzing the business of underwriting slave voyages, we have two other objectives. First, we explore the meaning of slave insurance from the perspective of those directly involved in the trade. Was it about insuring lives or goods? Second, we provide new estimates of the importance of the slave trade to U.K. marine insurance. Did the former drive the growth of the latter, as Joseph Inikori has claimed?

Covered mortgage bonds have been used successfully in Europe for two centuries, but failed in the United States when introduced as farm mortgage debentures in the 1880s. Using firm-level data and a sample of loans made by one Kansas mortgage company, I find that debenture programs grew out of established loan brokerage operations and were used to fund mortgages that were difficult to broker because of size, term, or risk characteristics. Debentures broadened access to the interregional mortgage market and facilitated an expansion of western farm mortgage debt before the innovation failed in the mortgage crisis of the 1890s.

“[T]he availability of affordable mortgage financing is essential to turning the corner on the current housing crisis …. One option we have looked at extensively is covered bonds, which … have the potential to increase mortgage financing, improve underwriting standards, and strengthen U.S. financial institutions ….”

Secretary of Treasury Henry Paulson

July 28, 2008

The sixteenth-century Price Revolution in Spain induced by the gigantic stream of Mexican and Peruvian silver was followed by a century of alternate inflation and deflation resulting from wars and weak governments. But in spite of frequent, long, and unsuccessful wars, monetary stability characterized the first half of the eighteenth century. Then a sharp rise in the output of the precious metals, particularly of Mexican silver, increased the Spanish monetary stock and forced prices upward by almost one third in the next three decades of comparative peace. To finance a bitter conflict with England in 1779–83, Spain was compelled to resort to her first issues of paper money. The paper currency depreciated rapidly during the war but rose to par after the conclusion of peace and remained there throughout the Nootka Sound controversy.

Only in recent years have the economic problems involved in the conduct of war begun to receive much attention from scholars. As a result of sad experience we now also have substantial groups engaged in studying the problems of postwar readjustment, but I know of no attempt to present a summary generalization of the more enduring reactions of American wars upon the economic life of the country. By the more enduring reactions I mean those which are felt after the postwar period of readjustment and which may be due either directly to the war or to the depression caused by the war.

The political and economic institutions of the Dutch Republic puzzle the historian. Closely juxtaposed are elements suggesting a tantalizing precociousness and elements which hearken to the medieval past. The Republic was the creation of a revolution; it can be identified as the first European state to throw off a monarchical regime and bring a bourgeois social class to full political power. On the other hand, the foremost motive behind this rebellion was the resistance of medieval, municipal particularism to governmental centralization—to modernization, if you will.

As economic historians delve more deeply into the economy of the Continental Colonies, they become increasingly aware of its sophistication. Good Englishmen in every way, the colonists' economic development closely paralleled that of a Mother Country which, of course, by the 1770's, was on the eve of an industrial revolution. The British themselves constantly complained of colonial competition in most every sphere of activity. Yet any claims for a highly developed colonial economy by historians, or complaints about competition by British merchants, have, until recently, sounded more like puffery or self-pity. Facts have been few. Even so major an element in the process of economic growth as the accumulation and productive mobilization of colonial domestic savings remains to be examined. It is now possible to say something about at least this topic for a significant colonial enterprise, the shipping industry.

Previous studies of the political business cycle have examined time series data to determine whether a pattern of pre-election boom and post-election slump exists. The studies do not investigate the behavior and mechanisms by which a politician may effectuate a political business cycle. We focus on one time period, 1969 to 1972, and conclude that President Nixon's personality and operating environment explain why he manipulated the economy for political gain. The mechanisms he utilized to improve macroeconomic conditions before the 1972 election include monetary policy, fiscal policy, and wage-price controls.

In studying the history of capitalism, one rarely encounters business enterprises without a capital stock or a profit account, founded and managed by men who expressed no desire for monetary rewards, and lacking owner-entrepreneurs. This paper deals with just such institutions—mutual savings banks. It has been recognized for some time that during the antebellum period mutual savings banks were relatively large and influential institutions. In 1860, when mutuals held a total of $150,000,000 in assets, the next most important type of non-bank financial intermediary, life insurance companies, held assets of only $24,000,000. More impressive was the size of some of the individual mutuals, for in 1860 several mutuals ranked among the ten largest business organizations in the country. Throughout most of the antebellum period the nation's largest mutual was the Bank for Savings in the City of New York. In 1825 this one bank held 56 percent of the nation's savings bank deposits; and ten years later, in 1835, it still accounted for over 34 percent of the country's deposits and 42 percent of its customers. Another New York institution—the Bowery Savings Bank—surpassed the Bank for Savings as the nation's largest mutual in 1860. At that time each of these banks commanded deposits in excess of $10,000,000 and a third New York mutual, the Seamen's Bank for Savings, was approaching that mark. In all, nineteen mutual savings banks were founded in New York City between 1819 and 1860. Table 1 shows the date that each bank opened for business, and the amount on deposit on January 1, 1861.

During 1850–1913 the growth of the world economy was not steady. The observed variations are described with the phrase “G-waves.” In contrast to Kondratieff long waves, G-waves lack a regular periodicity and amplitude.

The Chesapeake economy failed to grow during the first half of the eighteenth century, but experienced rapid development during the third quarter of the century. Economic stagnation before 1750 resulted from the inability of tobacco planters either to increase productivity or to reduce costs of production, whereas an increase in grain exports and rising amounts of Scottish credit to planters explain growth during the pre-Revolutionary decades. Nonetheless, whites were able to purchase increasing quantities of consumer goods by exploiting the labor of the increasing numbers of black slaves who produced most of the region's tobacco.

Evidence drawn from records of auctions held by the Royal African Company in Barbados between 1673 and 1723 is used to obtain annual estimates of slave prices by demographic category. These price series are then used to investigate the implications of an economic analysis of the demographic composition of the slave trade. The results provide quantitative support for the prediction that rising slave prices in the West Indies caused an increase in the share of children among the population of slaves in the transatlantic trade. This economic effect may have been a significant link between American slave markets and the demographic history of black populations in both Africa and America.

This article examines economic policy in the Eisenhower years and the president's role in the 1960 election. I measure the impact of changes in fiscal policy on real GNP and show that policy in 1959 was unusually contractionary and cannot be dismissed as merely evidence of Eisenhower's fiscal conservatism.