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."...

Introduction / Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz -- Transitions over the lifecycle. Women working longer: facts and some explanations / Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz -- The return to work and women's employment decisions / Nicole Maestas -- Understanding why black women are not working...

In contemporary American political discourse, issues related to the scope, authority, and the cost of the federal government are perennially at the center of discussion. Any historical analysis of this topic points directly to the Great Depression, the "moment" to which most historians and...

How has the United States government grown? What political and economic factors have given rise to its regulation of the economy? These eight case studies explore the late-nineteenth- and early twentieth-century origins of government intervention in the United States economy, focusing on the...

Introduction / Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz -- Transitions over the lifecycle. Women working longer: facts and some explanations / Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz -- The return to work and women's employment decisions / Nicole Maestas -- Understanding why black women are not working...