We examine the relationship between international trade and regional American credit markets. The evidence presented suggests that foreign payment flows had a significant effect on the level of interest rates in the East North Central, West North Central, Pacific, and Southern regions of the United States.

Studies of the postbellum South have neglected the development of the capital goods industry within the region. The argument of this note is that where the capital goods industry was limited or not present, economic development was inhibited. Within the South, I focus on regional differences in the development of the industry. Evidence is presented that indicates that the development of the capital goods industry and the pattern of inventive activity (as measured by patents) varied considerably within the South. One key finding is that the plantation Old South had fewer patents per capita compared with the nonplantation South.

The paper examines changes in the organization of the British cotton industry from 1825 to 1850 in its core region of Lancashire and northeast Cheshire, using new data to delineate patterns of integration, specialization, and the adoption of new technology. The industry is usually assumed to have progressed from a rather specialized structure in 1825 to a highly integrated structure in 1850; much of the literature is devoted to explaining this trend. No such trend occurred, however, and the explanations are incorrect. An alternative view, focusing on technical change and profitability in spinning and weaving, is outlined briefly.

This study questions the concept of entrepreneurial failure, traditionally invoked to account for the demise of the Gloucestershire wool trade in the Industrial Revolution. Gloucester clothiers used steam power selectively because of the high cost of coal but on a more regular basis and at greater capacity than scholars have commonly admitted. Excess capacity due to overcapitalization accounted for the failure of mills with large engines; underutilization of steam accounted for the failure of mills with small engines. Both types of failure sprang from rational and entrepreneurial choices, and not from an unwillingness to innovate.

The daily, weekly, and seasonal rhythms of production in the Montgolfier paper mill, one of the largest in eighteenth-century France, are examined here. Based on the comments of pioneer manufacturers, historians have been led to believe that early industrial work was irregular and unpredictable. The Montgolfiers as well complained of undependable workers. Yet their own output registers reveal a pattern of regular productivity unaided by advanced machinery or steam power.