"Small Towns and Big Business uses fieldwork and archival sources to comprehensively examine these controversies and the underlying issues. while Wal-Mart is usually able to site its stores at its preferred locations, in some cases local opponents have been able to thwart its plans. Using...

Although the mobilization of savings is an important function of banks and other financial institutions, there is remarkably little evidence that bears on how and how well the financial sector mobilized household savings in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. This paper documents...