2001EBHS Conference
Selected Abstracts
“The
Urban Hinterland: Centralization
and the Rise of New York Port, 1780-1825”
Rohit T. Aggarwala, Columbia
University
New York City’s emergence as the
commercial center of the United States in the twenty years following the
Revolution is an unusual case in global urban history because it involved the
displacement of an existing leading center, Philadelphia.
This paper suggests that New York’s success was merely the most visible
aspect of the transition of the new nation’s cities from a collection of
separate, general ports into a true urban system.
In particular, the paper argues that New York became the beneficiary of a
major transfer of trade from the small ports of southern New England to a single
larger port, which took place as merchants relocated, sent business through
commission agents, or leased out their ships. Hudson, New York, provides an example of a small port that
declined as a result of these processes. However,
like Hudson, most of the small ports found a new life as specialized centers of
whaling, manufacturing, or shipbuilding. The
paper suggests that behind these changes were an increased importance of timely
news for business transactions, the creation of the national postal system that
enabled merchants to use commission agents effectively, and the greater
connections among merchants that were created out of their participation in the
political events of the 1770s and 1780s.
“The
Interpretation of Montreal's Growth Over 1851-1901 and the Emergence of an
Unusual Core-Periphery Pattern”
Benoit
Mario Papillon, University of Quebec in Trois-Rivieres, CANADA
This paper
submits to factual evidence the traditional view accounting for Montreal's
growth in the second half of the 19th century. Since urbanization in Lower
Canada occurred mostly around Montreal, the literature opposes an expanding
Ontario to a laggard Quebec Province and emphasizes Montreal’s transshipment functions.
Following a description of the pace of urbanization, the paper identifies
implications of the traditional view. It
is found they are not supported by census data on manufactures and occupations,
which further raises the question on the origin of the sustained growth of
Montreal prior to the turn of the century. Using local and provincial data, conjectures are presented on
trade flows connecting Montreal area, the rest of the province and neighboring
provinces. The paper concludes by
proposing a model of Quebec province urbanization, acknowledging initial
conditions prevailing in the middle of the century, particularly people location
and transportation facility endowments in terms of access to cheap water
transportation
“Gasoline
Rabies: The Problems and Costs
Accompanying the Development of the U.S.’s Motor Vehicle Based System of
Transportation, 1919-1929”
John Rossi, Pennsylvania
State Erie, The Behrends College
This paper
examines the problems accompanying the introduction of a new system of
transportation in the U.S. based on the motor vehicle. The adoption of
motor vehicle technology and the development of a system of transportation on it
have received considerable attention from the technological and institutional
perspectives. The costs that this system imposed in terms of a rising rate
of accidents and motor vehicle related fatalities, however, have largely been
ignored by automotive and transportation historians. This is ironic
because of the extensive public concern over the rapid growth in accidents and
fatalities.
This paper
traces the development of the American motor vehicle system of transportation,
the increasing numbers of accidents and deaths, and the public debate over the
issue. It applies systems analysis to the emergent automotive
transportation system to explain the problems inherent in it and the
difficulties of taking corrective action to solve the accident problem. In
so doing it provides a fresh perspective on this important and overlooked aspect
of business and economic history.
“Competing Through
Innovation: Toward an Understanding
of the Underlying Innovation Systems”
James
Smith, Widener University
There are strong theoretical arguments as well as increasing empirical
evidence to suggest that companies, particularly high technology companies, are
adopting innovation as a pro-active competitive strategy.
These companies are no longer utilizing economies of scale to compete
based on price, nor are they simply reacting to competitors or exogenous changes
in technology by introducing similar products, but instead they are using
product and process innovation to leapfrog competitors and create new markets.
Such competitive strategies are not so much dependent on production
systems as they are on innovation systems.
While innovation systems may appear similar to production systems in that
they yield a steady stream of product and process innovations much like
production systems produce products, nevertheless, as a creative rather than
repetitive process, they rely on fundamentally different principles.
This paper explores the very different nature of innovation systems.
After describing briefly the nature of competition-through-innovation, it
reviews some of the mechanisms cited in the literature as influencing innovation
and then utilizes Intel's innovation system as an illustration of an innovation system in practice.
“The
Reconstruction of the German Merchant Fleet and the Shipbuilder Blohm and Voss,
1918-1923”
Olaf
Mertelsmann, Novosibirsk State University, RUSSIAN FEDERATION
Due to World War I and the
Treaty of Versailles, Germany lost nearly her entire merchant fleet.
The reconstruction of this fleet in an era of unrest and a devastating
inflation seemed to be an economic wonder.
Blohm & Voss, the leading German shipyard at that time, played a key
role in this process. The company
organized a cartel of German shipbuilders, which functioned as a pressure group,
too. At the end of the inflation,
the reconstruction was finished, but it became quite expensive for the state. In
reality the whole program was a huge misallocation of rare capital.
“Towards
the ‘Cult of the Equity’?: Insurance
Companies and the Interwar British Capital Market”
Peter
Scott, University of Portsmouth, UNITED KINGDOM
Insurance
companies ranked among Britain’s most important institutional investors during
the interwar years. Yet throughout this period they faced significant challenges
in restructuring their portfolios and placing their rising new funds in
investments that would both earn satisfactory yields and maintain capital
values. The high interest regime of the 1920s threatened the value of their
large holdings of government bonds, while the cheap money era of the 1930s made
it necessary to find higher-yielding stocks to maintain policy bonuses. These
conditions provoked substantial debate in the insurance world regarding
investment policy, including theoretical contributions by Keynes and others and
empirical studies of asset performance.
This
paper examines interwar insurance investment patterns and practices, using both
aggregate statistical data and evidence regarding individual companies. It
reveals that, contrary to some recently published biographies of individual
British insurance companies (which argued that interwar investment patterns
largely conformed to pre-1914 practice), there was in fact a major change in
asset allocation. The main movement was a substantial shift in new investment
from secure fixed-interest assets to higher yielding securities, including
ordinary shares. This followed a transition in investment theory, with the
development of new philosophies, which accorded both legitimacy and importance
to the role of ordinary shares in insurance portfolios. In an important sense,
the ‘cult of the equity’ had its roots in the interwar period.
“Federal
Investments in Private Canal Companies, 1825-1835”
Carl
Lane, Felician College
Between 1825 and 1833 the government
of the United States invested almost two million dollars in the stock of four
private canal companies. This paper
reconstructs the government's canal stock portfolio and reviews the
congressional debates over these subscriptions.
It emphasizes that both advocates and opponents agreed on at least two
matters: first, that the government
could afford these risks because recurring annual budget surpluses promised to
eliminate the public debt and, second, that there was nothing inappropriate
about investing public money in corporate securities because the federal
subscriptions to the stock of the first and second Banks of the United States
provided important, unchallenged, and profitable precedents for such government
activity. Yet the latter
investments had been justified on the ground that profits would promote debt
reduction. The canal investments,
however, were justified on the ground that debt extinction was at hand.
The Jacksonians ultimately exposed this ideological flip.
In any event, none of the canal investments was profitable, and, in the
end, the government lost more than 98% of the invested revenue.
This experience soured subsequent public attitudes toward investing
public funds in corporate securities.
“The
Decline of the Federal Debt: Life
Without Hamilton's Blessing?”
Ken Weiher, University of
Texas at San Antonio
As budget deficits have
recently turned to surpluses, the federal debt has begun to shrink for the first
time since the 1920s. Projections
of continued surpluses have raised the possibility that the federal debt – at
least that part held by the private sector – could be eliminated within the
decade. This paper provides
historical background and analysis of the debt and its uses so that one might be
better prepared to decide if the nation’s economy would be healthier with or
without the federal debt. First,
the long-term quantitative history of the debt and its major components is
presented. Next, the historical
background and trends of the portions owned by the government, the Federal
Reserve, and private investors, both domestic and foreign – are described,
analyzed, and projected. With
off-budget surpluses pouring into the Social Security trust fund,
government-owned federal debt is destined to keep on rising since those surplus
funds must be invested in government securities.
Those surplus funds are now being used to retire privately held debt.
Another growing portion is that held by the Federal Reserve, whose
holdings of federal debt increase regularly through open market operations.
And, foreign ownership of the debt, although level in recent years,
exceeds $1.2 trillion already. Given
all these trends, the financial markets face the possibility that there will be
no more Treasury securities left to be traded in the very near future. That leads to a final consideration of the implications and
the wisdom of eliminating the federal debt, “Hamilton’s blessing.”
“Economic
Pragmatism: The Iowa Amish and The
Vision of Communal Coherence in Late 20th Century America”
Silvano
Wueschner, William Penn University
This
paper examines the attempt by members of one Amish settlement in southern Iowa
to broaden their economic activities in an effort to maintain their religiously
based community. The Amish dress in
a plain 19th century style and rely on horses for their work and
transportation needs, and, on the surface at least, eschew the modern ways of
the world. Though it is readily apparent that the long held perception of a
cloistered life is a myth. The
Amish have managed to push their communal strictures to the limit. At the same time it is apparent that it is a daunting task at
best for the Amish to attempt to maintain their cultural homogeneity in an
economy dominated by sweeping technological and social changes.
The Amish frequent many of the same retail stores as their “other world
neighbors,” they avail themselves of modern means of transportation to travel
great distances to visit relatives or to attend funerals and weddings, and in
the winter some, especially the elderly, spend the harsher months in Florida as
do their “English” counterparts. Within
Amish communities there are signs of conflicts that have less to do with
theological questions but more with efforts to cling to old customs.
As the paper points up, the Amish are wedded to an impossible exegesis
given the modernizing influences of the surrounding world.
“Recommitting
vs. Selling Out: The Changing
Economic Role of the Plain People of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania”
Tom
Winpenny, Elizabethtown College
In Lancaster County, Pennsylvania Amish entrepreneurs have generated an
industrial revolution—in large part a practical and necessary response to
rising land prices and a collapsed tobacco market.
Working in sheds and barns on their farms, they produce a wide variety of
wood products from birdhouses to gazebos. The
Amish produce these items by the hundreds and thousands for a very special
market of 4 million tourists who descend on the county from Baltimore,
Philadelphia, Washington, and New York with credit cards and fistfuls of cash
spring-loaded to buy anything made by the Amish.
The failure rate for these small businesses is only 5% over the first
five years, remarkably lower than the failure rate for small businesses in the
rest of the culture. Not
surprisingly, Amish bishops worry that industrialization will erode traditional
values. Some zoning officers have
requested that Amish entrepreneurs not erect factory-like buildings on their
farms in order to maintain the illusion of the area's ongoing love of
agriculture. The possibility of
Amish farmers turning to raising non-nicotine tobacco holds little potential for
stemming the tide of industrialization.
“Historical
Evolution of Income Evaluation Concepts in Accounting”
Jerome
DeRidder and H. Reed Muller, Salisbury State University
At the start of double-entry bookkeeping in the fifteenth century there
was no need to separate income from capital investment. Most investment was short term, such as a shipping voyage,
where income was determined at the end of the voyage when merchandise was sold
and revenue was distributed among investors.
The
industrial revolution in England created the need for continuous operation with
the concomitant need to determine income in order to pay the investors
dividends. The need to determine
income was the start of accounting theory concerning the nature of capital and
this lead to accounting asset valuation concepts, income determination and
periodic reporting.
An early
income concept was that goods needed to “change masters” before a profit
could be realized. English courts
in 1870 and 1894 ruled that profit realization must occur before dividends could
be paid.
Tax cases in 1912 and 1920
established the rule that a transaction must occur before income is realized and
the transaction must be definite, measurable and irrevocable.
In the 1930’s the American Accounting Association adopted this
standard.
In 1964 the AAA distinguished between
realized and unrealized profit by allowing revenue to be considered as realized
when the earnings process is complete and an exchange has taken place, but if a
better measure of income would result at completion of production then revenue
could be recognized at the end of production.
Income recognition today is
transaction based and conservative; it still utilized an original cost valuation
system but now has emphasis on the efficiency of capital management.
“Conflict
between the Federal Reserve System and the Comptroller of the Currency in the
1920s: A Case Study of a
Representative Country Bank”
Michael
McAvoy, SUNY College at Oneonta
In the first two decades after the
founding of the Federal Reserve System, an uneasy relationship developed between
the Fed and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
While the Fed was charged with macroeconomic responsibility for the
stability of the financial system, the Comptroller monitored the performance of
individual banks to promote a sound financial system.
Following World War One, country
banks adjusted their balance sheets towards higher risk farm loans and mortgages
and away from lower risk bond investments during a period of agricultural
speculation. During a deflationary
monetary policy between Junes 1920 and 1921, agricultural commodity prices fell
almost 50 percent. The 1920s farm
economy recession lowered country bank borrowers' credit quality, and country
banks failed at an increasing rate throughout the decade.
Examiner reports and correspondence
for The First National Bank of Bloomington, Illinois, reveal that the
Comptroller's Office was aware of the general farm situation and knew of the
bank's practice of carrying slow-to-repay borrowers.
The examiners repeatedly requested these loans be liquidated, but the
availability of Fed rediscounts permitted the Bank to remain liquid.
After 1926, the bank ceased to
remain liquid through borrowing reserves, so the bank liquidated the loans of
many borrowers. Its solvency became
an issue with the Comptroller's Office since many of its borrowers were
insolvent. Finally, during 1929-30,
the Comptroller's Office no longer tolerated the condition of the bank and
forced "voluntary" liquidation through the threat to appoint a
receiver to place the Bank into involuntary liquidation.
“Oz,
Populism, and Intent”
Ranjit
S. Dighe, SUNY College at Oswego
Following the lead of influential
articles by Henry Littlefield (1964) and Hugh Rockoff (1990), teachers economic
history often relate 1890s monetary Populism to L. Frank Baum's classic The
Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Although
the Oz-Populism story is reliably a hit with students, an obvious question
remains: Did L. Frank Baum intend any of this?
This paper seeks an answer, by building on recent research into Baum's
life and by scouring some of Baum's other, more overtly political writings for
evidence. Those writings include his editorials for a South Dakota
newspaper in 1890-91; his lyrics for the original stage musical of Oz; and
another children's novel he wrote, this one about a political campaign.
I conclude that The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was neither a Populist parable
nor a piece of pure escapism written solely for children. Although it is clear that Baum would not have been one to
write a pro-Populist allegory, the parallels between characters, incidents, and
settings in the book and 1890s political economy are still striking.
The book remains a great way to get Populism across to students.
The remaining task is to carefully note two paradoxes: Just because the
book can be read as a monetary allegory doesn't mean it was written as one. And,
just because the book was almost surely not written as a monetary allegory,
doesn't mean that we can't profitably read it as one.
Once we clear those hurdles, we can do justice both to Populism and to
Baum.
“Adjustments
Prior to Long-term Stable Employment: Preconditions of the Japanese Employment
System, 1945-49”
Jae-Won
Sun, Harvard University
James G.
Abegglen in The Japanese Factory: Aspects of Its Social Organization
(Glencoe, 1958) characterized the postwar Japanese employment system as
“lifetime employment,” another name used to describe the long-term stable
employment. However, he did not show how the practice developed
historically and continued to function in
the economy.
The
employment adjustment during the reconstruction period, especially in 1949, was
rigorously enforced in a short period of time. The
reasons for this were that the deflation policy was strongly implemented and the
companies needed it to
escape from a deficit operation. A
great number of companies in manufacturing industry had to reform their own
organization because they were radically enlarged during World War II. Such organizational reforms led the companies to drastically
reduce the number of employees, and this in turn contributed to
the high performance during the period of rapid economic growth from the 1950s
to the early 1970s. Simultaneously, the process of reform gave rise to new
adjustment practices,
for example “voluntary retirement” whereby
an employee voluntarily retired
due to the employer’s encouragement by
providing extra pay to retire. Both management and labor recognized that voluntary retirement
reduced the cost of negotiating adjustments and would guarantee majority
employment. The new adjustment
practices that were established in the reconstruction period from 1945 to 1949
enabled long-term stable employment to
be sustained. This became the most
important feature of employment practices in postwar Japan.
“The South
Pays for the North: War Finance in
the Kingdom of Naples During the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648)”
Antonio
Calabria, University of Texas, San Antonio
This paper examines the severe fiscal offensive that the Spanish Monarchy
unleashed in the Kingdom of Naples during the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648).
Though the war was fought far from Naples' borders, well to the north of
the entire Italian peninsula, the Kingdom was burdened with a whole range of new
taxes designed to aid the war effort in Northern Europe and to protect the state
of Milan, in Northern Italy, from the contingencies of war.
Though historians of early modern
Italy were well aware that a renewed burden of taxes for Spain's grandiose
efforts in Germany and the Low Countries had been Naples' to bear in the early
decades of the seventeenth century, no one had yet provided a quantitative
breakdown of that burden. This paper uses unpublished fiscal documents to examine the
sources of tax revenue (direct and indirect taxation and the retention of
interest payable on instruments of the state consolidated debt) and the stages
when each gained prominence from 1622 to 1644.
The Monarchy's heedless fiscal policy in those decades is placed
in historical perspective, and studies the effects of that policy on economy,
society and polity in the Kingdom.
“When
Two Plus Two Did Not Equal Five”
Theodore
P. Kovaleff, Dirks & Company
As a result of the
implications of the Microsoft Decision, there has been a good deal of discussion
concerning the ramifications of divestiture actions by companies involved in
similar, but earlier actions. The belief held by both scholars and popular
writers is that the holders of the divested securities benefited.
We attempt to test this
theory. To do this we have looked at the price action of Standard Oil and its
spin-offs. While we find that the basket of new companies plus Standard
outperformed the rest of the market [using the Dow Jones Average as a proxy], we
believe that there are a number of additional factors which help to explain the
difference. In contrast, the record of American Telephone and Telegraph and the
spun off Bell Operating Companies is inferior to that of a basket of equities of
similar corporations.
We opine that were Microsoft
to be split into two or three different companies, the basket would not act
better than an unbroken Microsoft. As the company is part of the retirement plan
of most Americans via mutual fund holdings or personal portfolios, this has
ramifications that can affect more than insular “Wall Street.”
“Profit
and Duty in the Exchange Operations of the Second Bank
of
the United States”
Jane
Ellen Knodell, University of Vermont
The Second
Bank of the United States (1816-1836) developed extensive dealer operations in
domestic and foreign exchange by the late 1820s.
These operations have been credited with lowering the cost of
interregional payments in the expanding young nation and with improving the
performance of the dollar-sterling exchange market.
As shown in the paper, the Bank’s profit performance improved as it
expanded its exchange operations.
It is
widely accepted that the Bank, which unlike state-chartered banks had a national
network of branch offices, enjoyed economies of scale in the exchange business. What is more in question, and explored here, is whether the
Bank priced its interregional and international payments services so as to share
these cost savings with the real economy, or whether it added high commission
fees onto its low posted prices so as to reap monopoly rents.
The paper argues that the Bank priced exchange much as a regulated
natural monopolist would, and earned high profits by realizing returns to scale
and scope and creating synergies between its for-profit exchange operations and
the fiscal operations it had to perform for the federal government free of
charge. In the final analysis, the
Second Bank shared its cost savings with its customers not because it nobly
sacrificed private profit for public duty, but because the political conditions
for securing a renewal of its federal charter, the institutional underpinning of
the Bank’s profitability, required it to do so.
“Frank
Vanderlip and the National City Bank During World War I”
Priscilla
Roberts, University of Hong Kong, HONG KONG
This paper focuses on the First
World War policies of the National City Bank, drawing attention to the internal
disputes within the bank over war financing.
Some historians have suggested that during the First World War New York
banks associated with the National City Bank favored fierce competition with the
Allied powers for markets and overseas investment opportunities, whereas those
linked to J. P. Morgan and Company preferred cooperation with the Allied powers,
concentrating upon handling the massive war financing the Allied war effort
required.
In reality the picture was more
complex. The National City Bank
participated substantially in Allied war loans, and with the First National Bank
and Morgans was one of the `Trio' of leading United States banks that handled
such financing. Simultaneously, its
president, Frank A. Vanderlip, a long-time advocate of the expansion of American
foreign trade and investment, launched a major initiative to expand the National
City's overseas activities, through the establishment of foreign branches around
the world and the creation of the American International Corporation, a foreign
investment trust. Although
Vanderlip suggested that he wished to cooperate with Britain in these
activities, they generated conflict between the National City and the fiercely
pro-Allied Morgan firm. Within the
bank, they also created substantial tension between the largely neutral
Vanderlip and his fiercely pro-Allied patron, the bank's chairman, James A.
Stillman, who died in 1918, and other strongly pro-Allied National City
officers. Shortly after the war,
Vanderlip proposed a massive and visionary American scheme to finance European
economic regeneration, causing the National City's directors, who considered it
impractical, to dismiss him.
“Yankee
Enterprise! The Early Rise &
Fall of ‘Corning Incorporated,’ 1851-1871”
Jeffrey
J. Matthews, University of Puget Sound
The early
history of Corning Incorporated illuminates key aspects of America’s social
and economic transformation. Through the business experience of the company’s
founder, Amory Houghton, one senses the development and commercial opportunities
of the nation’s industrial towns, cities, and suburbs. His story of “Yankee
enterprise” in the antebellum period moves almost mythically from farm boy to
trade apprentice, to skilled craftsman, to wharf merchant, to corporate
investor, and finally, to industrial capitalist. But America’s economic
evolution and Houghton’s experience were far from seamless. The sum of his
business record, like that of most entrepreneurs, is a mixture of good and bad
fortune, dedication and hardship, success and failure. Corning Incorporated’s
climb to international prominence in the twentieth century was preceded by
frequent setbacks and even bankruptcy.
Perhaps
above all, Corning’s early story testifies to the difficulty of shifting from
the commercial world of merchants and artisans to that of corporate
manufacturers. The glorified and exceptional experiences of the Vanderbilts,
Carnegies, and Rockefellers too often obscure the common and contributory
efforts of smaller proprietors like Houghton. Through the example of less
influential and yet remarkable entrepreneurs, one can often better appreciate
the underside of the country’s dynamic business history--the challenge of cash
flow management (in times of strong and weak sales), the threat of labor
opposition, the complexity of new manufacturing technologies, the possibility of
accidental disasters, and the dire challenge of competition.
“The
Battle of the Sexes: The Beauty
Industry's Lessons”
Jane
R. Plitt, University of Rochester
The power
of the marketplace to help women enter the beauty industry, and ultimately
dominate it, reveals a turf battle that has long been ignored.
The experiences of these early women reveal an ongoing battle with men
for the right to define their own beauty and to economically benefit from the
emerging multi-million industry. Women
at the turn of the century, usually from the lower class, entered the fray
expecting to make their livelihood as hairdressers or cosmeticians.
Names such as Martha Matilda Harper and Madame CJ Walker were early
pioneers. These women opened
opportunities for women and engaged in an activism within the workplace for
economic equality. Many only
identify this consciousness with the second wave of women’s rights in the
1960s.
Barbers, a
well-established, male-dominated profession that held strong union ties,
demonstrated how their sexism ultimately led to their professional demise. Originally women were prohibited from joining the barbers’
union. Then when the barbers
observed the changing hairstyles of women to the “bob”, it became clear that
women’s haircuts would represent a lucrative market.
Through state protective laws, barbers tried to outlaw hairdressers, a
smaller female-dominated profession, from cutting women’s hair.
Over two decades of political, judicial, and legislative confrontations
ensued, with women being jailed for the right to cut women’s hair.
Ultimately,
women were admitted as barbers to the union, and even as hairdressers. Today women dominate the field.
“The
Nordstrom Way—Will It Survive?”
Mark
L. Gardner, Piedmont College
Founded in 1901 in Seattle as a
partnership between Swedish immigrant Johan W. Nordstrom and his shoemaker
friend Carl F. Wallin, Nordstrom's has expanded from a single shoe store to a
nationwide, upscale, specialty department store chain with 114 stores in 23
states. The chain, which is under
the direction of the fourth generation of Nordstrom's, is noted for its
excellent customer service and liberal return policy.
Although frequently imitated, the quality of its services and merchandise
has rarely been surpassed by anyone in the retailing industry.
“The
Rise and Fall of the Greene Doctrine: The
Sherman Act, Howell Jackson, and the Interpretation of ‘Interstate
Commerce,’ 1890-1941”
Harvey
Hudspeth, Mississippi Valley State University
This paper
deals with the evolution of the judicial interpretation of the term
"interstate commerce" beginning with the enactment of the Sherman
Anti-Trust Act of 1890 and concluding with the Supreme Court's Darby v. US decision
some 51 years later. As may be recalled, the Fuller Court's 1895 ruling in
EC Knight all but destroyed Sherman and allowed most corporate
monopolies free reign going into the early Twentieth Century. Even after
Sherman's revival in Northern Securities, however, the court's narrow
interpretation of "interstate commerce" continued to effectively
thwart federal attempts at economic regulation for the next half century. This
paper examines the formulation of the so-called "Greene Doctrine" and
its author, future Supreme Court Justice Howell Edmunds Jackson as well as their
ultimate impact on American constitutional and economic history.
“A
Business and Government Partnership in Post-War New Zealand: Fletchers, Forests,
Building and Paper”
Astrid
Baker, Massey University, NEW ZEALAND
This paper
shows how a New Zealand company, Fletcher Construction, created wealth in
partnership with the state. The first Labour government was elected in 1935 with
a firm commitment to full employment and a broad system of social security. Its
determination to get things done through local industry coincided with James
Fletcher’s and then his son’s drive for company expansion and profits.
Fletchers’ design and construction – of roads, wharves, saw-mills, flour
mills, factories, railway stations, university buildings, hospitals, department
stores, office blocks, houses - and ownership and management of stone quarries,
brick-works and forests, left a mark in almost every town and city in the
country. Many projects required construction methods, materials and expertise
new to New Zealand, drawing together many different suppliers, equipment makers,
skilled tradesmen and bankers. By providing major opportunities for employment,
steadily gaining economic and political power, and cultivating close links with
leading politicians, the company became a potent force in New Zealand’s full
employment welfare state.
“Protection
Against Financial Crisis and Collapse? The
Role of Regulation and Supervision. The
Norwegian Case 1914-35”
Sverre
Knutsen and Gunhild J. Ecklund, Norwegian School of Management, BI NORWAY
The recent financial unrest in Asia and a number of banking crises in other
countries since the early 1980s, has attracted growing attention to questions
like why do financial crises do occur and how to prevent instability.
The paper discusses these questions through a historical study of the inter-war
banking crises in Norway. Using a theoretical framework based on the so-called
financial fragility approach, the paper suggests that the root of the banking
crises were to be found in the economic boom during WW I. Although methodically
difficult to determine, it also concludes that supervision of the financial
markets mattered. During the war, lack of
supervision of commercial banks, non-life insurance companies and broker's firms
contributed to a massive bubble in these sectors, increasing the financial
fragility and leading to the crises of the 1920s. Savings banks and life
insurance companies did neither experience a similar boom nor such substantial
crises. A main reason for this was that public inspectors worked actively and
successfully especially towards the savings banks to prevent them from
participating in high-risk engagements during the war. The 1920s’ crisis
resulted in introduction of new legislation and supervision towards commercial
banks. When crisis struck again in 1931 threatening two of the major commercial
banks, the central bank was able to act without hesitation and keep them from
going bankrupt. The main basis for this firm action was information provided by
the new Banking Inspectorate. The supervisory authorities thus contributed
substantially to limit financial instability during the early 1930s.
“Stalking
the Kabuli Walla”
Karl
Borden, University of Nebraska
The Kabuli
Walla were a special breed of Afghan traders. Plying their wares during the late
19th and 20th centuries throughout the area of modern-day western Bangladesh and
Northeast India, these itinerant tinkers were an important source of trade goods
and also served as moneylenders of last resort to the Bengali natives of the
region.
The Kabuli
Wallas (literally “Important People from Kabul”) declined in number and
importance following the Second World War, Indian independence, and Pakistani
separation. During the Bangladeshi
War of Liberation in 1971 most who remained either fled or were slaughtered in
the general mayhem that accompanied the revolution.
In October
1999, Dr. Karl Borden, Professor of Financial Economics at the University of
Nebraska, arranged a personal interview with one of the last living Kabuli
Wallas. Abdul Hazim Khan, who
claimed to be 114 years old as of the interview, walked the Bengal hills from
the early part of the 20th Century, through both world wars, survived
the War of Liberation, and resided in a back street hovel in Kushtia,
Bangladesh. Dr. Borden met
with Khan twice. Khan, with a
remarkable memory, provided details of the trade goods he carried, of the
character of the Bengali customers to whom he sold, and of the money lending and
interest-rate practices of the Kabuli Wallas.
This article presents Dr. Borden’s
journal entry of the encounter in its entirety, supplemented with background and
explanatory information about the economic and political circumstances within
with the Kabuli Wallas conducted their trading activities.
The authors of these and other papers presented at the 2001 Albany Conference were given the opportunity to submit their papers for review and possible publication. A rigorous peer review process is followed in which each paper submitted is examined by two reviewers and ultimately by the editor.
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