History of Property Taxes in the United States
Glenn W. Fisher, Wichita State University (Emeritus) Taxes based on ownership of property were used in ancient times, but the modern tax has roots in feudal obligations owned to British and European kings or landlords. In the fourteenth and fifteenth century, British tax assessors used ownership or occupancy of property to estimate a taxpayer’s ability […]
Economic History of Portugal
Luciano Amaral, Universidade Nova de Lisboa Main Geographical Features Portugal is the south-westernmost country of Europe. With the approximate shape of a vertical rectangle, it has a maximum height of 561 km and a maximum length of 218 km, and is delimited (in its north-south range) by the parallels 37° and 42° N, and (in […]
English Poor Laws
George Boyer, Cornell University A compulsory system of poor relief was instituted in England during the reign of Elizabeth I. Although the role played by poor relief was significantly modified by the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, the Crusade Against Outrelief of the 1870s, and the adoption of various social insurance programs in the […]
The National Recovery Administration
Barbara Alexander, Charles River Associates This article outlines the history of the National Recovery Administration, one of the most important and controversial agencies in Roosevelt’s New Deal. It discusses the agency’s “codes of fair competition” under which antitrust law exemptions could be granted in exchange for adoption of minimum wages, problems some industries encountered in […]
The Economic History of Norway
Ola Honningdal Grytten, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration Overview Norway, with its population of 4.6 million on the northern flank of Europe, is today one of the most wealthy nations in the world, both measured as GDP per capita and in capital stock. On the United Nation Human Development Index, Norway has been […]
An Economic History of New Zealand in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
John Singleton, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand Living standards in New Zealand were among the highest in the world between the late nineteenth century and the 1960s. But New Zealand’s economic growth was very sluggish between 1950 and the early 1990s, and most Western European countries, as well as several in East Asia, overtook […]
Economic History of Malaysia
John H. Drabble, University of Sydney, Australia General Background The Federation of Malaysia (see map), formed in 1963, originally consisted of Malaya, Singapore, Sarawak and Sabah. Due to internal political tensions Singapore was obliged to leave in 1965. Malaya is now known as Peninsular Malaysia, and the two other territories on the island of Borneo […]
Labor Unions in the United States
Gerald Friedman, University of Massachusetts at Amherst Unions and Collective Action In capitalist labor markets, which developed in the nineteenth-century in the United States and Western Europe, workers exchange their time and effort for wages. But even while laboring under the supervision of others, wage earners have never been slaves, because they have recourse from […]
The History of American Labor Market Institutions and Outcomes
Joshua Rosenbloom, University of Kansas One of the most important implications of modern microeconomic theory is that perfectly competitive markets produce an efficient allocation of resources. Historically, however, most markets have not approached the level of organization of this theoretical ideal. Instead of the costless and instantaneous communication envisioned in theory, market participants must rely […]
The Roots of American Industrialization, 1790-1860
David R. Meyer, Brown University The Puzzle of Industrialization In a society which is predominantly agricultural, how is it possible for industrialization to gain a foothold? One view is that the demand of farm households for manufactures spurs industrialization, but such an outcome is not guaranteed. What if farm households can meet their own food […]