Using the postal service as an example, this article highlights the critical role played by a series of “implicit” judgments when estimating the government earnings differential. Regression estimates demonstrate that alternative treatments of location, gender, industry, occupation and union...

The United States federal government preempted anti-competitive state and municipal telegraph regulations when the 1866 Post Roads Act was enacted. The act granted a de facto national franchise to build and operate a telegraph system anywhere in the United States to any telegraph company...

This article places the British and American postal telegraph movements in the broader context of a transatlantic reform tradition. More specifically, British nationalization in 1870 gave American reformers both a rallying point and a rationale for postalizing the telegraphs. The legacies of...