Late Nineteenth-Century American Development A General Equilibrium History [Paperback]

An economist's attempt to interpret a critical period of US history, from Civil War to World War I.This book is an economist's attempt to interpret a critical period of US history, from Civil War to World War I. It blends traditional historical analysis with general equilibrium theory, modern macroeconomics and simulation analysis. The result is a provocative book of remarkable scope which offers a fresh interpretation of late nineteenth-century American growth.This book is an economist's attempt to interpret a critical period of US history, from Civil War to World War I. It blends traditional historical analysis with general equilibrium theory, modern macroeconomics and simulation analysis. The result is a provocative book of remarkable scope which offers a fresh interpretation of late nineteenth-century American growth.Late Nineteenth-Century American Development is an economist's attempt to interpret a critical period of US history, from Civil War to World War I. The questions raised have always been at the heart of American historiography. What accounts for the retardation up to the turn of the century? How did capital markets operate and what was their influence on the pace and pattern of our growth? What determined farm performance and what impact did that performance have on the economy as a whole? Yet while the questions raised in this book are familiar, the methods are not. This book blends traditional historical analysis with general equilibrium theory, modern macroeconomics and simulation analysis. The result is a provocative book of remarkable scope which offers a fresh interpretation of late nineteenth-century American growth.Preface; Part I. The Issues: 1. Late nineteenth-century American development: the issues; 2. Counterfactual history; Part II. The Framework: 3. A model of late nineteenth-century American regional growth; 4. American economic history rewritten: fact or fiction?; Part III. The Lessons of History: 5. The Great Depression, 187096; 6l³?