What was the impact of railroads in the output of the United States during the 19th century and how can a New Trade model help answer this question? In order to respond I follow three steps. First, I construct a new digital railroad data set and pair it with geographic and topographic features...

The belief that immigrants generate beneficial externalities in their host countries, specifically in the form of an increased opportunity and ability of firms to expand their foreign trade, has recently been challenged by George Borjas in Heaven's Door (1999, p. 97) as having no empirical...

This paper studies the operation of trans-Atlantic passenger shipping cartels during the period 1899-1911 and its effects on passenger traffic. We systematically document and categorize cartel agreements on the basis of key aspects of internal organization. Then, we exploit the variation in...

We show that Southern trade and the Southern economy were primarily harmed by the Confederate government's economic and military policies. The Union blockade fleet and coastal bases were a necessary condition, but it was the policies of the Confederate government that made the closure of...

This paper quantifies the extent to which the U.S. manufacturing labor market is characterized by employer market power and how such market power has changed over time. We find that the vast majority of U.S. manufacturing plants operate in a monopsonistic environment and, at least since the...

This paper compares and contrasts two debates about the role ofinfrastructure in American economic growth and development. Thecontemporary policy debate revolves around the extent to which theobserved decline in public works investment since 1960, measured asa proportion of GNP, has been a cause...

Prisoners employed in manufacturing constitute 4.2% of total U.S. manufacturing employment in 2005; they produce cheap goods, creating labor demand shock. I study the economic externalities of convict labor on local labor markets and firms. Using newly collected panel data on U.S. prisons and...

We find evidence that the runs on banks and trust companies in the Panic of 1907 were linked to the Bank of England's contractionary monetary policy actions taken in 1906 and 1907 through the medium of copper prices. Results from our VAR models and copper stockpile data support our argument that...

I examine how market access affects the output of agricultural crops and whether changes to output were driven by increasing concentration in production, using the late nineteenth American transportation network expansion as a natural experiment. I use detailed potential yield data from GAEZ-FAO...

This chapter is part of a forthcoming edited volume exploring alternative approaches and readings of decisions of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) within their political, economic and legal contexts. This contribution focuses on the Viking judgment of December 2007, which, together with the...