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...

Using unpublished manuscript census data for 1869/70 and 1879/80, we estimate that manufacturing establishments in the mid/late nineteenth century averaged about 10 months of fulltime operation per year; somewhat longer in 1880 fractionally less in 1870. Months of operation, however, varied...

We use data from the manuscript censuses of manufacturing for 1850, 1860, 1870, and 1880 to study the dispersion of average monthly wages across establishments. We find a marked increased in wage inequality over the period, an increase that cannot be explained by biases in the data or changes in...

A number of conceptually robust and empirically practical approaches are available to assess relative economic performance among producers who operate on either side of an international border. In this paper we discuss the impact that data compilation, methodological choice, and variable...

Solow (1957) decomposed labor productivity growth into two components that are independent under Hicks neutrality: input growth and the residual, representing technical change. However, when technical change is Hicks biased, input growth is no longer independent of technical change, leading to...

Most major American industrial business cycles from around 1880 to the First World War were caused by fluctuations in the size of the cotton harvest due to economically exogenous factors such as weather. Wheat and corn harvests did not affect industrial production; nor did the cotton harvest...

Dun's Review began publishing monthly data on bankruptcies by branch of business during the 1890s. This essay reconstructs that series, links it to its successors, and discusses how it can be used for economic analysis.

This paper investigates the determinants of skyscraper building cycles in Manhattan from 1895 to 2004. We first provide a simple model of the market for tall buildings. Then we empirically estimate the determinants of the time series of the number of skyscraper completions and their average...