Were high import tariffs somehow related to the strong U.S. economic growth during the late nineteenth century? This paper examines this frequently mentioned but controversial question and investigates the channels by which tariffs could have promoted growth during this period. The paper shows...

This paper discusses a portion of our work linking data on the agriculture sector in the United States and Canada. The purpose of this work is to explore the evolution of gains in agricultural productivity in the two countries during the post-WWII period. Comparable data has been developed for...

In this paper we calculate and analyze the automobile industries cost and productivity experience during the 1970 's in Canada, the U.S.and Japan. Utilizing an econometric cost function methodology, we are able to isolate the major source of short-run disequilibrium in this industry-variations'...

The MACE model of Canada employs a nested production structure in which there is a vintage bundle of capital and energy that is combined with efficiency units of labour to define potential output for given quantities of employed factors. The actual level of output is derived from an estimated...

In this paper we examine exclusion accomplished by a coalition of firms--frequently, a coalition of suppliers and customers--that share the benefits of exclusion. As a particular historical example, we study the Canadian sugar industry of the 1880s, which was controlled by a complex coalition of...

We find a steep earnings-longevity gradient using fifty years of administrative data from Canada, with men in the top ventile of earnings living eight years (11 percent) longer than those in the bottom ventile. For women, the difference is 3.6 years. Unlike the United States, this longevity...

We use new data on manufacturing in Canada to quantify the impact of globalization on the growth and composition of industrialization in the second half of the nineteenth century. We find that industries and regions more exposed to international trade experienced faster growth. Consistent with...

A panel of corporate ownership data, stretching back to 1902, shows that the Canadian corporate sector began the century with a predominance of large pyramidal corporate groups controlled by wealthy families or individuals. By mid-century, widely held firms predominated. But, from the 1970s on,...

This paper examines the historical origins of "Original Sin" or why countries are unable to issue long term debt domestically or borrow abroad in terms of the domestic currency. We conduct an historical case study for a group of countries that had largely overcome the problem of Original Sin by...

This is the first paper to directly measure and decompose total factor productivity growth (TFPG) for the Canadian life insurance industry. TFPG averaged 1.0 percent per year over the period from 1979 to 1989, thereby outperforming many manufacturing industries. The rate of TFPG was 0.2 percent...