Contrary to their traditional image as institutions operated exclusively for “frugal workers,” mutual savings banks in New York were also a haven for the savings of many middle and upper class persons, whose accounts comprised a substantial proportion of the banks' funds. Thus these intermediaries presumably improved the efficiency of the savings and investment process, allowing middle class people to allocate their resources between fixed and liquid assets better than would otherwise have been possible.

This study finds that the average degree of concentration in southern industrial markets was high in the period 1850–1860. Although the potential for monopolistic control existed, the authors argue, it does not appear to have been exploited systematically to gain rates of return exceeding those in less concentrated industries.

Professor Durie examines the significance of the “chemical revolution” of the eighteenth century in the expansion of the Scottish linen industry.

This study indicates that profit rates in western river steamboating were typical of the returns earned in other antebellum business activities, and that returns were much higher on tributary than on trunk steamboating routes.