This study constructs indexes of productivity change to show that the yield of prairie farm land fell, in some cases as much as 25 percent, while the productivity of non-land inputs rose 300 percent or more from 1900 to 1930. It was this latter productivity growth, rather than the supply of prairie wheat land emphasized by the “staples approach” to Canadian economic history, that made the western prairie profitable to farm, and that contributed most to expanding the supply of prairie wheat. Much of the post-World War I expansion of settlement was on the drier and relatively low yielding parts of the Canadian prairie.

Differences in the school and work experience of young girls and boys are explained by factors related to the demand for household production including the presence of young children, boarders and lodgers, and home ownership. Gender based differences in job characteristics and hourly earnings associated with occupational segregation contributed to the observed pattern of higher schooling investment by girls and earlier work experience by boys.

This paper provides evidence regarding the extent of antebellum trade in major agricultural products between the West and the Northeast, the types of products involved, and the magnitude of surpluses or deficits. We found that West-Northeast trade was more important than West-South trade.

Trade protection commonly is viewed as a support—external and perhaps occasional—granted to an industry by government policymakers. Focusing on the steel industry, this study argues that protection is better viewed as a commodity, an input into the production of steel. The development of the market for the protection commodity during the past century is related to the history of regional, national, and international markets for steel.

Almost two decades ago, Professor Frederic C. Lane, assisted by Dr. Jelle C. Riemersma, prepared a book of readings in economic history, published in 1953, by Richard D. Irwin, Inc., under the title Enterprise and Secular Change. At that time I suggested the inclusion after translation of Arthur Spiethoff's article, “Die Allgemeine Volkswirtschaftslehre als geschichtliche Theorie: Die Wirtschaftsstile,” published in the Festgabe für Sombart in Schmollers Jahrbuch, LVI, No. 6 (1932), 51 fr. When Professor Spiethoff was informed of this suggestion, he refused to give the needed permission since his ideas on the subject had matured. Instead he sent an original article consisting of several sections, some of which I translated. Spiethoff's pertinent ideas were then published in translation in America in two separate papers. One, entitled “The ‘Historical’ Character of Economic Theories,” is to be found in the Journal of Economic History, XII (1952), 131 ff; the other, “Pure Theory and Gestalt Theory: Ideal Types and Real Types,” appeared in the Lane-Riemersma reader just cited. The rest of Spiethoff's original article remained untranslated. One section of it is now being submitted.

The present state of economic history in Canada contrastswith that of a quarter century ago. It could be written sharplyin the 1930's that the most distinctive work in Canadian economics was being done by economic historians concerned with the study of transportation and tariffs, trade associations and agricultural organizations, money and banking. There was at the same time a close approach to a generally accepted framework of analysis and interpretation and more than a suggestion of synthesis in Canadian historical writings. This pre-eminence of economic history and this unity of theme are now things of the past. As to the first, the rate of progress in economic analysis and statistics, in sociology and political theory, has brought with it both a change in status and the prospect of extensive revisions, factual and interpretative, of our views of the past. Similarly, a former unity of approach resting on the economics of staple production has lost ground before the complexities of modern industrial change. For the economic historian these changes promise much for present and future research even if, at the moment, they bring small comfort.

In a recent article in this journal we presented an analysis of productivity change of steamboats on western rivers, 1815–60. Although the steamboat dominated river commerce during this period, other transportation technologies had been and were available. Prior to the steamboat era, keelboats and flatboats were the primary means by which the agricultural surpluses of the trans-Appalachian regions reached outside markets (especially through New Orleans). Although flatboating persisted, keelboating was quickly eclipsed with the introduction of the steamboat. This contrast is explained in part by the differential impact of the steamboat on upstream and downstream rates. Successful keelboat operations depended primarily on upstream revenues, and it was on the upstream rates that the steamboat had its most dramatic effects. One study indicates that by the early 1820's, keelboat revenues on the Mississippi had fallen below or very near to average variable costs, and keelboating was maintained only on shallower waters off the main trunk routes. Alternatively, flatboating not only survived but even expanded in the face of the stiff competition generated by the newer technology. For instance, in 1816, the year before the first successful steamboat navigation of the western rivers, 1287 flatboats arrived in New Orleans. By the commercial year 1846–47, the number of arrivals had increased to a peak of 2792. This persistence of flatboating occurred despite the fact that flatboats underwent no changes in their physical characteristics. Neither were there any apparent technical advances in their handling or navigation.

Since the first American guaranteed wage and employment plans were formulated more than sixty years ago, the concept of guarantees has been championed by diverse economic institutions. This paper will analyze these successive attempts at establishing guarantees in the chronological order in which they have occurred—first, by business enterprise, secondly by various levels of government, and finally, by labor unions.

It is necessary to indicate at the outset the general character of the historical material with which this paper deals. I have been able to discover in this period of Georgia's history almost no advocacy or discussion of the doctrine of laissez faire as such. On the other hand, one finds much discussion of private and public enterprise which, if removed from the context of events, would seem to involve most of the commonly accepted tenets of laissez faire. Lastly, there are the main currents of social action, which, upon investigation, are found to have comprised a varying mixture of private and public activities. It is difficult, if not impossible, to determine the logic of the social policy which directed these currents simply by observing the varying proportions of private and public action; it would be necessary first to go behind the action and study both the ends and the means. In the limited space allotted to this paper, it is possible to present only the barest outlines of the more important events and discussions in which the issue of public interference or of private versus public action arose. Interpretations and evaluations must be left, for the most part, to additional studies

The importance of the international sector in initiating the nineteenth-century economic development of the United States has been widely acknowledged. Its influence on American economic stability, however, is by no means as well established. Controversy persists concerning the interrelationships between the international flow of liquid funds evidencing balance-of-payments disequilibrium and the American monetary system during the period from the 1830's to the Civil War.

We use data from marriage records in Murcia, Spain, in the eighteenth century to study the role of women in social mobility in the pre-modern era. Our measure of social standing is identification as a don or doña, an honorific denoting high, though not necessarily noble, status. We show that this measure, which is acquired over the lifecycle, shows gendered transmission patterns. In particular, same-sex transmission is stronger than opposite-sex, for both sons and daughters. The relative transmission from fathers versus mothers varies over the lifecycle, and grandparents may affect the status of their grandchildren.

Recent scholarship contends that ancient Mediterranean economies grew intensively. An explanation is that Smithian growth was spurred by reductions in transaction costs and increased trade flows. This paper argues that an ancient Greek institution, proxenia, was among the key innovations that allowed such growth in the period 500–0 BCE. Proxenia entailed a Greek city-state declaring a foreigner to be its “public friend,” a status that conferred both duties and privileges. The functions performed by “public friends” could facilitate economic transactions between communities. Accordingly, network and regression analyses establish a strong relationship between proxenia grants and trade intensity.

Alfred Marshall argued that the malaise of public companies in Edwardian Britain was due to the separation of ownership from control and a lack of professional management. In this paper, we examine the ownership and control of the c.1,700 largest British companies in 1911. We find that most public companies had a separation of ownership and control, but that this had little effect on their performance. We also find that manager characteristics that proxy for amateurism are uncorrelated with performance. Ultimately, our evidence suggests that, if Marshall was correct in identifying a corporate malaise in Britain, its source lay elsewhere.