When private incentives are insufficient, a big push by government may lead to industrialization. This paper uses mobilization for World War II to test the big push hypothesis in the context of postwar industrialization in the American South. Specifically, I investigate the role of capital...

We develop a spatial equilibrium model to evaluate the efficiency and distributional impacts of the leading air quality regulation in the United States: the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS). We link our economic model to an integrated assessment model for air pollutants which...

This study uses two samples of linked adult males to examine wealth accumulation by region and occupation between 1850 and 1870. Consistent with past research, the findings here show that wealth accumulation was substantial in the South in the 1850s and stagnant in the 1860s. The findings also...