In the past decade there has been an extremely active interest in theevidence and importance of the twenty-year building cycle, or Kuznets cycle as Lewis suggests we call it, in both American nineteenth-century development and British development after 1870. The evidence of building cycles in the United States is perhaps more extensive and seems clearly, in the research accumulated by Kuznets, Burns and Abramovitz, to indicate a long swing in the general process of growth, not just long swings isolated to the building trades. Whereas American long swings pervade all domestic series of output, income and investment, British experience seems somewhat different. After 1870 long swings in British capital exports alternated with long swings in domestic investment in a fashion which eliminated excess fluctuations in income and output, which would have been due mainly to fluctuations in aggregate demand.

After 1865 Southerners found their communities generally in a state of economic chaos. This was particularly true of the mercantile system. Before the war numerous small towns and villages were in the process of development, and the more localized system of merchandising was reaching out into the general trade. The merchants of the new stores were rapidly cutting into the virtually monopolistic control previously exercised by the system of cotton factorage on which the larger planters depended for supplies, for with the establishment of local stores, cotton planters looked more and more to their home merchants. During the four years of war these local stores were practically forced out of business by a lack of stock. The end of the war brought to the merchant a complete economic revolution. He was now to engage in a system of storekeeping which was unique in every respect except the name. Southern general stores became country stores whether they existed in the country or not, for the bulk of their trade was that of ”country” supply.

The study of the economic history of modern China is underdeveloped. There is urgent need for original work both in ascertaining facts and in interpretations. Though investigations into the various phases of the Chinese economy had been made by the Chinese Maritime Customs since the 1860's, and by interested contemporary observers such as Morse and Wagel, statistical surveys on a large scale were not systematically conducted with any degree of reliability until the 1930's. They represented the efforts of the government, academic institutions, and individual scholars. A comprehensive survey on agriculture was made by John L. Buck and the National Agricultural Research Bureau of the National Government. An industrial census of Chinese-owned factories was planned and carried out by D. K. Lieu for the National Resources Commission of the National Government. Mining statistics were collected by government agencies under the direction of Ting Weng-chiang and Weng Wen-hao. Railway statistics have been published (since 1915) and a monumental collection of some 37 huge volumes on transportation and communications was compiled by the Ministry of Communications. The Nankai Institute of Economics—with which professors Franklin Ho, Fang Hsien-ting (H. D. Fong), C. M. Li and many others were associated—made significant contributions in the study of prices, terms of trade, modern industries, and handicrafts. Banking statistics were collected by various institutions, especially the Bank of China. The most comprehensive work on foreign investment was done by C. F. Remer and later by the Japanese East Asian Research Institute. The Japanese Manchuria Railway provided a great deal of economic information on Manchuria after the latter was taken by Japan in 1931. A few sample studies were made both by research institutions and by the government on the characteristics of the Chinese population.

Antebellum judges played crucial roles in resolving conflicts between slaveowners and common-carrier owners. Because courts could easily quantify the value of a slave's life, they were quicker to compensate slaveowners for slaves injured or killed by a common carrier than to award damages to an injured free person or his estate. Yet judges also had to craft rules governing the behavior of the slave property itself. By the 1860s, Southern courts had established law that encouraged parties with legal standing to act efficiently. Strikingly, tort doctrines developed in slave cases foreshadowed the evolution of law for free accident victims.

Any discussion of the United States Congress and imperialism must admit at the outset a basic handicap—neither Congress nor imperialism lends itself to precise definition. As regards Congress, that part of it which between 1861 and 1897 was most influential in foreign affairs—the Senate—has been best defined by two solons who served there several decades apiece—John Sherman of Ohio and John Tyler Morgan of Alabama. They arrived at a bipartisan definition one warm afternoon of 1890, when Morgan was objecting because Sherman, as chairman of a conference committee, declined to divulge conferee secrets. Sherman, indifferent to the needs of future economists and historians, said it would be a “departure” from “gentlemanly propriety” to discuss private conversation indicating “the means by which we got together.” This aggravated Morgan, who tartly reminded Sherman, “Oh, Senators are not in that sense gentlemen in the conference-room. They are Senators.” Sherman insisted, “but they are expected to be gentlemen.”

This study, based on primary sources, shows that the army's role in the wartime mobilization of the industry was fundamental and extensive. It determined aircraft prices and labor exemptions, regulated the industry's supply of credit and raw materials, limited patent rights, and ultimately interfered in management-labor relationships. Its policies resulted in the industry's expansion and concentration and in above average real wages for the industry's labor force. The article concludes that while the mobilization of the aircraft industry was successful, military regulation of the German war economy in World War I was generally inefficient.