In this paper we employ microeconomic evidence on the unemployment experiences of American males to evaluate the sensitivity of unemployment to business cycle fluctuations in the late nineteenth century as compared to the mid-twentieth century. Our results indicate a substantial decline in the...

This paper pools data from independent household surveys of Japanese workers roughly spanning the Taisho period (1912–1926), a time before private-business or government-provided social safety nets. First, we construct estimates of permanent and transitory income and then estimate saving...

Before the formation of the Federal Reserve, banking panics were routine events in the United States. During the most severe episodes, banks in cities across the country would often suspend or restrict the par convertibility of their demand deposit liabilities. In diagnosing the causes of the...

John entered the MIT graduate program during the early, lofty days of the “new” economic history, and emerged as one of its most deft, sensible and versatile practitioners. His PhD dissertation—directed by Peter Temin—exemplifies the promise of this new approach to historical analysis....