Managers make different decisions in countries with poor protection of investor rights and poor financial development. One possible explanation is that shareholder-wealth maximizing managers face different tradeoffs in such countries (the tradeoff theory). Alternatively, firms in such countries...

This paper utilizes a survey of the US manufacturing firms from 1832 to investigate the structure of manufacturing investment during early industrialization. Although several manufacturing industries, such as cotton textiles, depart from the pattern, most appear to have devoted the hulk of their...

A primary function of trade policy is to restrict imports to benefit the targeted domestic sector. However, a well-established theoretical literature highlights that the form of trade policy (e.g., quotas versus tariffs) can have a significant impact on how much trade policy affects firms'...

This paper presents new annual estimates of U.S. production of pig iron and imports of pig iron products dating back to 1827. These estimates are used to assess the vulnerability of the antebellum iron industry to foreign competition and the role of the tariff in fostering the industry's early...

In this paper we measure the quality change which has occurred in U.S. steel imports during the 1969-74 VRA, using an index number method. Under this approach, the yearly changes in unit values is broken into three components: a quality-adjusted or pure price index; a quality index, which...

Traditional human capital theory emphasizes a worker's investment in knowledge. However, when a worker is faced with day-to-day problems on the job, the solutions to the problems often require more knowledge from a team of experts within the firm. When a worker taps into the knowledge of...

Over the past decades, the steel industry has been protected by a wide variety of trade policies, both tariff- and quota-based. We exploit this extensive heterogeneity in trade protection to examine the well-established theoretical literature predicting nonequivalent effects of tariffs and...

Recently, the United States International Trade Commission conducted a Section 201 or "escape clause" hearing to determine whether imports have been the most significant cause of injury to the U.S. steel industry. This paper suggests a methodology for conducting the necessary analysis for such...

The U.S. integrated steel industry has been very successful in securing import protection over the last 20 years. Critical to that success has been a cohesive coalition of steel producers, the steelworkers' union and 'steel-town' congressional representatives. The political strength of this...