Volume 21 of Research in Economic History is a substantial contribution in several respects. Its heft reflects the continuing increase in quality submissions to this series, which invites (although it does not require) authors to take advantage of less stringent space limitations than is...

In the tradition of the new economic history, this collection includes seven carefully researched papers blending systematic empirical research with consideration of broader theoretical and analytical issues

Exports and the economy of the lower south region, 1720-1770 / Peter C. Mancall, Joshua L. Rosenbloom, and Thomas Weiss -- Quarterly data on the categories and causes of bank distress during the Great Depression, 1929-1933 / Gary Richardson -- On English pygmies and giants : the physical stature...

Introduction / Alexander J. Field -- A Soviet quasi-market for inventions : jet propulsion, 1932-1946 / Mark Harrison -- Network quality in the early telegraph industry / Tomas Nonnenmacher -- The Spanish infrastructure stock, 18441935 / Alfonso Herranz-Lonc(c)Øan -- Have American workers...

Introduction / Alexander J. Field -- From foraging to farming : the so-called "neolithic revolution" / Frederic L. Pryor -- The growth of world agricultural production, 1800-1938 / Giovanni Federico -- The Great Depression as a credit boom gone wrong / Barry Eichengreen, Kris J. Mitchener -- The...

Technological breakthroughs and productivity growth / Harald Edquist, Magnus Henrekson -- New national bank loan rate estimates, 1887-1975 / Scott A. Redenius -- The net effect of railroads on stature in the postbellum period / Ebru Guven Solakoglu -- Growth in a protected environment :...

The extraordinary unemployment rates of black women during the Great Depression caused a sizeable number to leave the labor force as "discouraged workers." Consequently, while married white women entered the labor force in increasing numbers, the participation rate of married black women...

Census data show that the ratio of black to white unemployment rates, currently in excess of 2:1, was small or non-existent before 1940, widened dramatically during the 1940s and 1950s, and widened again in the 1980s. The authors decompose changes in the unemployment gap over the years 1880-1990...

Individuals' estimates of their paid working hours in response to the Current Population Survey (CPS) are biased upward. The bias is demonstrated here using two independent alternative sources of work-hour estimates: time-diary studies and the BLS Current Employment Statistics (CES) survey,...