This paper examines how price shocks in antebellum slave markets were transmitted to surrounding slave markets. A newly developed time series econometric technique is utilized to estimate the transmission of price shocks among slave markets and to investigate the univariate and multivariate time...

Economists have been newsworthy critics of the policy of drug prohibition. This paper seeks to determine if these instances of criticism represent a consensus of professional opinion. A random survey of professional economists suggests that the majority supports reform of drug policy in the...

The immediate purpose of this paper is to focus on how import and blockade regulations enacted by the Confederacy affected the course of the war in its final days, but the issue of the economic effects of blockades has broader implications. Economic policies have been used as weapons, at least...

There is an emerging literature on the subject of skyscrapers and business cycles. Lawrence (1999) first noticed the correlation between important changes in the economy and the building of record-breaking skyscrapers. Thornton (2005) established a theoretical link between the two phenomena....

Central banks have embarked on a transition from relative secrecy to relative transparency over the last two decades. This has led researchers to investigate the ramifications of transparency on important economic outcomes. By and large, the results reported have been favorable, favorable with...

We show that Southern trade and the Southern economy were primarily harmed by the Confederate government's economic and military policies. The Union blockade fleet and coastal bases were a necessary condition, but it was the policies of the Confederate government that made the closure of...

The skyscraper index, created by economist Andrew Lawrence shows a correlation between the construction of the world's tallest building and the business cycle. Is this just a coincidence, or perhaps do skyscrapers cause business cycles? A theoretical foundation of “Cantillon effects” for the...

Richard Cantillon was the first economist to successfully examine the cyclical nature of the capitalist economy. He lived at a time (168?–1734) when the institutions of the modern capitalist economy were first fully and widely established and the first major business cycles occurred. In...