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Showing results for:
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Economic Category:
Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth
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1.
A History of the Bar Code
This article explains how the bar code was developed and its changing use throughout its invention. It also gives indications of possible future uses for the bar code. [Details...]
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2.
An Economic History of New Zealand in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
Living standards in New Zealand were among the highest in the world between the late nineteenth century and the 1960's. But New Zealand's economic growth was very sluggish between 1950 and the early 1990s, and most Western European countries, as well as several in East Asia, overtook New Zealand in terms of real per capita income. By the early 2000s, New Zealand's GDP per capita was in the bottom half of the developed world.
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6.
Cotton Gin
The cotton gin developed by Eli Whitney in 1793 marked a major turning point in the economic history of the Southern United States. This article describes what came before Eli Whitney and his innovative design. [Details...]
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7.
Economic History of Portugal
This article begins with the roots of Portugal to give a bit of economic history. It starts with the early centuries until the Spanish rule in the eighteenth century and describes its economic evolution. [Details...]
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8.
Economic History of Tractors in the United States
The farm tractor is one of the most important and easily recognizable technological components of modern agriculture in the United States. Its development in the first half of the twentieth century fundamentally changed the nature of farm work, significantly altered the structure of rural America, and freed up millions of workers to be absorbed into the rapidly growing manufacturing and service sectors of the country. The tractor represents an important application of the internal combustion engine, rivaling the automobile and the truck in its economic impact.
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9.
English Poor Laws
For nearly three centuries, the Poor Law constituted "a welfare state in miniature," relieving the elderly, widows, children, the sick, the disabled, and the unemployed and underemployed (Blaug 1964). This essay will outline the changing role played by the Poor Law, focusing on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
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11.
Historical Political Business Cycles in the United States
The notion that incumbents will alter the economic environment for their short-term political gain at the expense of long-term economic stability is referred to as generating a political business cycle. This article details the history of this notion by using past president's policies as examples. [Details...]
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13.
History of the U.S. Telegraph Industry
The electric telegraph was one of the first telecommunications technologies of the industrial age. This article explains its invention and development throughout the years and at the end gives a timeline of those events. [Details...]
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14.
Hours of Work in U.S. History
This article presents estimates of the length of the historical workweek in the U.S., describes the history of the shorter-hours "movement," and examines the forces that drove the workweek's decline over time. [Details...]
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17.
Labor Unions in the United States
This article explores the nature and development of labor unions in the United States. It reviews the growth and recent decline of the American labor movement and makes comparisons with the experience of foreign labor unions to clarify particular aspects of the history of labor unions in the United States. [Details...]
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18.
Mechanical Cotton Picker
Until World War II, the Cotton South remained poor, backward, and un-mechanized. With minor exceptions, most tasks -- plowing, cultivating, and finally harvesting cotton -- were done by hand. The mechanical cotton picker played an indispensable role in the transition from the prewar South of over-population, sharecropping, and hand labor to the capital-intensive agriculture of the postwar South. [Details...]
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20.
Multi-Sectoral Growth
A collection of articles providing a comprehensive coverage of the Multi-Sectoral Growth. The following topics are covered: The Uzawa Two-Sector Growth Model, Optimal Two-Sector Growth, and Heterogeneous Capital and Growth.
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21.
Path Dependence
Several of the most prominent path-dependent features of the economy are technical standards, such as the "QWERTY" standard typewriter (and computer) keyboard and the "standard gauge" of railway track -- i.e., the width between the rails. The case of QWERTY has been particularly controversial and is discusses in this article. [Details...]
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22.
Research and Development
Research and development is the creation of knowledge to be used in products or processes. This article answers the questions of whether private R&D is productive, government R&D is productive, and whether R&D is worthy of special treatment. [Details...]
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23.
Rural Electrification Administration
The advent of the electric industry in the 1880s ushered forward a rapidly expanding domestic market in the United States. This article describes the origins of this phenomenon and the outcomes for today. [Details...]
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24.
Savings and Loan Industry (U.S.)
The savings and loan industry is the leading source of institutional finance for residential home mortgages in America. This article discusses the origins and the history thus far of this industry. [Details...]
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25.
The Depression of 1893
This article describes economic developments in the decades leading up to the depression; the performance of the economy during the 1890's; domestic and international causes of depression; and political and social responses to the depression. [Details...]
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31.
The Marshall Plan, 1948-1951
The Marshall Plan was aimed at help the economies of Western Europe between 1948 and 1951. This article focuses on the competing interpretations of the effects of the Marshall Plan. [Details...]
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32.
The Neoclassical Growth Model
In the Harrod-Domar growth model, steady-state growth was unstable. In the popular term of the day, it was a "knife-edge" in the sense that any deviation from that path would result in a further move away from that path. However, Robert M. Solow (1956), Trevor Swan (1956) and, a bit later, James E. Meade (1961) contested this conclusion. They claimed that the capital-output ratio of the Harrod-Domar model should not be regarded as exogenous. In fact, they proposed a growth model where the capital-output ratio, v, was precisely the adjusting variable that would lead a system back to its steady-state growth path, i.e. that v would move to bring s/v into equality with the natural rate of growth (n). The resulting model has become famously known as the "Solow-Swan" or simply the "Neoclassical" growth model.
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33.
The Protestant Ethic Thesis
This article summarizes German sociologist Max Weber's formulation, considers criticisms of Weber's thesis, and reviews evidence of linkages between cultural values and economic growth.
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34.
The Roots of American Industrialization, 1790-1860
This article describes synergy between agriculture and manufacturing, manufactures which were produced for large market areas, the impact of transportation improvements, manufactures of Eastern and national markets, and the American manufacturing belt. [Details...]
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42.
Credibility of Economic Policy
This Learning Module will introduce you to the issue of economic policy credibility. Using a simple formal model, you can see how differences in public beliefs can cause the same policy action to produce different outcomes. For an analytical framework to evaluate public beliefs, examine six concepts relating to the credibility of economic policy. For real world experience, there are case summaries for you to consider. [Details...]
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47.
Economic Growth in East Asia
Over the past three decades remarkable economic growth has occured in East Asia. This policy forum will examine key features of economic growth in eight East Asian economies: Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, the Republic of Korea, Taiwan/China, Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia. This forum will also focus on some central ideas of growth theory. Tools and concepts from growth theory provide important insights into the East Asian experience. This experience, in turn, also provides new insights into the process of economic growth. One goal of this forum is to confront growth theory with an important example of economic growth, and in doing so promote understanding of both growth theory and an outstanding growth experience. [Details...]
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48.
Economic Growth in East Asia
Over the past three decades remarkable economic growth has occured in East Asia. This policy forum will examine key features of economic growth in eight East Asian economies: Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, the Republic of Korea, Taiwan/China, Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia. This forum will also focus on some central ideas of growth theory. Tools and concepts from growth theory provide important insights into the East Asian experience. This experience, in turn, also provides new insights into the process of economic growth. One goal of this forum is to confront growth theory with an important example of economic growth, and in doing so promote understanding of both growth theory and an outstanding growth experience. [Details...]
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49.
Enterprise Restructuring in the former Soviet Union
Citizens of the countries of the former Soviet Union (FSU) have recognized the potential benefits, observed in many different cultures and societies around the world, of private, market-driven enterprises. For more than half a century enterprises in the FSU have been subject to comprehensive state ownership and central planning. Prices and financing were typically of little concern to enterprise management, while workers did not have to worry about job security and received a wide range of social benefits through enterprises. While moving toward private, market-driven enterprises offers great promise for an improved standard of living for the average person, such a transition represents a fundamental social, psychological, and economic challenge. [Details...]
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52.
Unemployment in Eastern and Central Europe
Unemployment, once unknown and illegal in the formerly communist regimes in eastern and central Europe, has become a significant social and economic phenomenon. The rise in unemployment rates has been large but varied across countries. The transition from centrally planned economies to market-oriented economies has produced significant reductions in employment in the state sector as consumer-driven incentives begin to influence industrial structure. Reductions in employment in the state sector were partially offset by reductions in labor force particpation. Differences in the decline in labor force participation among countries led to significant differences in the relationship between unemployment growth and contraction in employment. However, the decline in labor force participation seems to be concentrated in the early stages of the transition, and in the future declining labor force participation is not likely to play as significant a role in dampening the growth of unemployment. [Details...]
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