Many of the positive economic trends coming out of the Civil Rights Era for black men stagnated or reversed during the late 1970s and early 1980s. These changes were concurrent with a rapid rise in import competition from Japan. We assess the impact of this trade shock on racial disparities...

Donald Trump gewann 2016 die Präsidentschaftswahlen, nachdem schon seit der Regierungszeit Ronald Reagans die oberen Einkommensschichten begünstigt worden waren. Der technische Fortschritt und die Globalisierung führten zu einem Wandel der Wirtschaftsstruktur zulasten der Mittel- und die...

This paper examines the interwar housing cycle in comparison to what transpired in the United States between 2001 and 2011. The 1920s experienced a boom in construction and prolonged retardation in building in the 1930s, resulting in a swing in residential construction's share of GDP, and its...

We estimate the stocks of patents and their growth rates in the Italian textile and chemical industries between 1904 and 1937. The stocks and growth rates by nationality are estimated for Italy, France, Germany, the UK, Switzerland, and the USA. The Italian patent stock in the textile industry...

Historical accounts suggest that Jewish ?migr?s from Nazi Germany revolutionized US science. To analyze the ?migr?s' effects on chemical innovation in the United States, we compare changes in patenting by US inventors in research fields of ?migr?s with fields of other German chemists. Patenting...

In my book Scale and Scope (1990), I focused on the history of the modern industrial firm from the 1880s, when such firms first appeared, through World War II. I did so by comparing the fortunes of more than 600 enterprises—the 200 largest industrial firms at three points in time (World War I,...

Despite the widespread view from Berle and Means (1932) onward that ownership of firms in increasingly separated from managerial control of those firms, almost no time series research exists to address this issue. Using the earliest available source on ownership for a large cross-section of US...

We explore the effectiveness of economic experimentation as a learning mechanism through a historical exploration of the early automobile industry. Our quantitative analysis suggests that economic experimentation was associated with success. We then leverage historical methods to understand if...

Today, evolving technologies have enabled scientific breakthroughs in innovative wind turbine designs, including taller wind turbine towers and longer blades. These breakthroughs will enable utility-scale wind turbines to reach higher into the atmosphere, access stronger winds, and produce...