This edited volume is based on original essays first presented at the World Economic History Conference, Kyoto, Japan, in August 2015. It also includes three essays subsequently written especially for this volume. All of the essays focus on financial markets in the periods leading up to, during, and after financial crises, and all are based on new data and archival research. The essays in this volume enlarge the range of historical evidence on the causes and potential cures for financial crises. While not neglecting the United States or Britain, the usual focus of financial historians, it includes studies of financial markets in times of crisis in Japan, Sweden, France, and other countries to achieve a truly global and historical perspective. As a result of the research reported here the reader will be made aware of several neglected factors that have shaped financial crises including the most recent crisis. These factors are (1) the role played by monetary policy in causing and ameliorating crises, (2) the role played by international contagion in private financial markets in propagating financial crises, (3) the role played by variations in the institutional structures of financial markets in determining the impact of financial crises, and (4) the role played by the social background of the central bankers who must contend with financial crises in determining the final outcome.

This is a history of America's use of wage and price controls from colonial times to Richard Nixon's experiment with controls in the 1970s. It explores the impact of controls on prices and productivity, side-effects such as the growth of black markets and the expansion of government, and the relationship between controls and monetary policy. The central conclusion is that, contrary to the conventional wisdom, there are situations where the net effect of controls can be positive. In particular, temporary controls may reduce the unemployment and lost output usually associated with disinflation.

Ever wonder how the American economy became the most powerful one in the world? Tying America's past to the economic policies of today and beyond, the popular HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN ECONOMY, 13E answers this critical question and more. This market-leading coverage presents events chronologically for easy understanding This prestigious book has been used by more students, like you, than in other text in the U.S. HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN ECONOMY has helped generations of learners understand how the American economy evolved. Completely updated with recent research by economic historians, this trusted book ties this country's past to the policies and debates of today and beyond. Visual aids, tables and graphs reinforce learning help keep you interested in the study of economic history. This edition is available with MindTap digital course, offering a full, mobile-ready textbook combined with superior and proven learning tools.

This edited volume is based on original essays first presented at the World Economic History Conference, Kyoto, Japan, in August 2015. It also includes three essays subsequently written especially for this volume. All of the essays focus on financial markets in the periods leading up to, during, and after financial crises, and all are based on new data and archival research. The essays in this volume enlarge the range of historical evidence on the causes and potential cures for financial crises. While not neglecting the United States or Britain, the usual focus of financial historians, it includes studies of financial markets in times of crisis in Japan, Sweden, France, and other countries to achieve a truly global and historical perspective. As a result of the research reported here the reader will be made aware of several neglected factors that have shaped financial crises including the most recent crisis. These factors are (1) the role played by monetary policy in causing and ameliorating crises, (2) the role played by international contagion in private financial markets in propagating financial crises, (3) the role played by variations in the institutional structures of financial markets in determining the impact of financial crises, and (4) the role played by the social background of the central bankers who must contend with financial crises in determining the final outcome.

Explores the use and impact of price controls in the United States from colonial times to the end of Richard Nixon's term in the 1970s. Professor Rockoff concludes that price controls may have positive effects in the short run.

How did economic and financial factors determine how America waged war in the twentieth century? This important new book exposes the influence of economics and finance on the questions of whether the nation should go to war, how wars would be fought, how resources would be mobilized, and the long-term consequences for the American economy. Ranging from the Spanish-American War to the Gulf War, Hugh Rockoff explores the ways in which war can provide unique opportunities for understanding the basic principles of economics as wars produce immense changes in monetary and fiscal policy and so provide a wealth of information about how these policies actually work. He shows that wars have been more costly to the United States than most Americans realize as a substantial reliance on borrowing from the public, money creation and other strategies to finance America's war efforts have hidden the true cost of war.

How did economic and financial factors determine how America waged war in the twentieth century? This important new book exposes the influence of economics and finance on the questions of whether the nation should go to war, how wars would be fought, how resources would be mobilized, and the long-term consequences for the American economy. Ranging from the Spanish-American War to the Gulf War, Hugh Rockoff explores the ways in which war can provide unique opportunities for understanding the basic principles of economics as wars produce immense changes in monetary and fiscal policy and so provide a wealth of information about how these policies actually work. He shows that wars have been more costly to the United States than most Americans realize as a substantial reliance on borrowing from the public, money creation and other strategies to finance America's war efforts have hidden the true cost of war.

Black markets, rationing, shortages - these and other issues are covered in this important collection which presents a selection of the best literature on the impact of price controls on wages, investment and real output in the short and long runs.The book covers a wide range of episodes ranging from the controls imposed by the Emperor Diocletian in the year 301 A.D. to recent experiments in Sweden. Several essays deal with controls during the two world wars, when some form of control was adopted by most of the industrialized countries. It includes articles by both critics of controls such as Milton Friedman to defenders such as John Kenneth Galbraith. Several are written by scholars who worked as high-level administrators of the programs they discuss. The book will be an essential reference source for both economists and economic historians with an interest in the price system and the functioning of a market economy.

Offering new research on strategic factors in the development of the nineteenth century American economy--labor, capital, and political structure--the contributors to this volume employ a methodology innovated by Robert W. Fogel, one of the leading pioneers of the "new economic history". Fogel's work is distinguished by the application of economic theory and large-scale quantitative evidence to long-standing historical questions. These sixteen essays reveal, by example, the continuing vitality of Fogel's approach. The authors use an astonishing variety of data, including genealogies, the U.S. federal population census manuscripts, manumission and probate records, firm accounts, farmers' account books, and slave narratives, to address collectively market integration and its impact on the lives of Americans. Students of labor history will find essays that reveal which laborers gained from early industrialization, how labor markets of the period responded to macroeconomic disturbances, and what role was played by contract labor in northern agriculture. For those with interests in monetary and financial history, there are essays that examine antebellum financial market integration, the effects of disturbances in financial markets on the real economy, and the accumulation and distribution of wealth. Demographers will benefit from five innovative studies: one setting forth new period and cohort mortality estimates, another on nutrition and health among free African-Americans, a revealing portrait of the slave family, and, lastly, two explaining the fertility decline. Finally, three essays are devoted to political economy, one to railroad financing in Canada and two to the economicconsequences of urban politics in the United States. The volume also includes two appreciations of Fogel written by Stanley L. Engerman and Donald N. McCloskey, and a bibliography of Fogel's writings. Economic historians will find the volume indispensable because of its wealth of new findings and conjectures about the nature of economic development in the nineteenth century; it also provides a basis for appreciating the contribution of the new economic history and Fogel's central role within it.