POTENTIAL SOURCES FOR STUDENT
TERM PAPERS
Eco 327 (Issues in American Economic History Since 1900)
Last revised 26 February 2013.
This list gives several good sources for your term papers.
It is by no means comprehensive, but if you're doing one of the topics
listed below, it ought to be helpful. There are, of course, many
more acceptable topics besides the ones listed below.
General piece of advice: Make ample use of the course
reading
materials, including the ANGEL readings.
While these should not be your only sources for the term paper,
you certainly should try to get whatever information you can from them.
Note: Books that have placed on
reserve at Penfield Library are indicated in boldface.
African-Americans' Economic Progress, 1900-2000
- Alexis, Marcus. "Assessing 50 Years of African-American
Economic
Status, 1940-1990." American Economic Review Papers and
Proceedings
88(2): 368-75 (May 1998). [Part of a three-article
symposium
on "African-American Economic Gains" in that issue.]
- Carnoy, Martin. Faded
Dreams: The Politics and Economics of Race in America. New
York: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
- Ellwood, David T., and Jonathan Crane. "Family Change Among
Black
Americans: What Do We Know?" Journal of Economic Perspectives
4(4): 65-84 (Fall 1990). [Part of a five-article symposium in
that
issue.]
- Fairlie, Robert W., and William A. Sundstrom. "The Racial
Unemployment
Gap in Long-Run Perspective." American Economic Review Papers
and Proceedings 87(2): 306-10 (May 1997). [Part of a
four-article
symposium on "African-American Economic Gains" in that issue.]
- Heckman, James J., Thomas M. Lyons, & Petra E. Todd,
"Understanding
Black-White Wage Differentials: 1960-1990." American Economic
Review Papers and Proceedings 90(2): 344-49 (May 2000). [Part
of a four-article symposium on the "Economic Well-Being of
African-Americans"
in that issue.]
- Higgs, Robert. Competition and Coercion: Blacks in the
American Economy,
1865-1914. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1977.
- Jaynes, Gerald D. "The Labor Market Status of Black
Americans: 1939-1985," Journal
of Economic Perspectives 4(4): 9-24 (Fall 1990). [Part of a
five-article
symposium on the "Economic Status of African-Americans" in that issue.]
- Margo, Robert. Race and Schooling in the South, 1880-1950.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990.
- Margo, Robert. "What Is the Key to Black Progress?" In Second
Thoughts, edited by Donald McCloskey. New York: Oxford University
Press,
1993.
- Myrdal, Gunnar. An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and
Modern Democracy.
New York: Harper, 1944.
- Smith, James P. "Race and Human Capital," American
Economic Review
74(4):685-698 (September 1984).
- Smith, James P., and Finis Welch. "Black Economic Progress
After
Myrdal," Journal of Economic Literature 27(2):519-564 (1989).
- Wilson, William Julius. The
Truly Disadvantaged.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.
- Wilson, William Julius. When
Work Disappears.
New York: Vintage Books, 1996.
- Wright, Gavin. "The Civil Rights Revolution as Economic
History," Journal
of Economic History 59(2):267-289 (June 1999).
The Cold War
- Edelstein, Michael.
“War and the American
Economy in the Twentieth Century.” Chapter 6 in The Cambridge
Economic History of the United States, Volume III: The Twentieth Century,
edited by Stanley Engerman and Robert Gallman. New York:
Cambridge
University Press, 2000. (On reserve at the Penfield
Library circulation
desk).
- Edelstein, Michael. "What
Price Cold
War? Military Spending and Private Investment in the US,
1946-1979." Cambridge
Journal of Economics 14: 421-437 (1990.) [Not available at
Penfield,
but I have a copy.]
- Higgs, Robert. "How Military
Mobilization
Hurts the Economy." Chapter 4 of Second Thoughts: Myths and
Morals
of U.S. Economic History, edited by D. McCloskey. New York:
Oxford
University Press, 1993.
- Koistinen, Paul A.C. The
Military-Industrial
Complex: A Historical Perspective (1980).
The Crash of 1929 and the Stock Market
of the 1920s
- De Long, J. Bradford, & Andrei
Shleifer.
"The Stock Market Bubble of 1929: Evidence from Closed-end Mutual
Funds." Journal
of Economic History 51(3): 675-700 (September 1991).
- Rappoport,
Peter, & Eugene N. White.
"Was There a Bubble in the 1929 Stock Market?" Journal of
Economic
History 53(3): 549-74 (September 1993).
- Smiley, Gene.
“Prosperity
Gives Way to the Great Depression.” Chapter 1 of Rethinking
the Great Depression (28 pp.). Chicago:
Ivan R. Dee, 2002.
- White, Eugene N. "The Stock
Market Boom
and Crash of 1929 Revisited." Journal of Economic Perspectives
4(2): 67-83 (Spring 1990).
Education and the American Economy
- Goldin, Claudia. "The Human
Capital Century." Education Next.
Winter 2003. Pp. 73-78. [Available on the Internet;
just Google it.]
- Goldin, Claudia, & Lawrence F. Katz. "The Shaping of Higher
Education:
The Formative Years in the United States, 1890 to 1940," Journal of
Economic Perspectives 13(1):37-62 (Winter 1999).
- Goldin, Claudia, & Lawrence
Katz. The Race Between
Education and Technology. Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 2008.
- Pryor, Frederic L., & David L.
Schaffer. Who's Not Working and
Why: Employment, Cognitive Skills, Wages, and the Changing U.S. Labor
Market. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
The Eight-Hour Day and the Shortening
of
the Workweek, 1900-1930
- Shiells, Martha Ellen, "Collective
Choice
of Working Conditions: Hours in British and U.S. Iron and Steel,
1890-1923," Journal
of Economic History 50(2):379-392 (June 1990).
- Soule, George. Prosperity
Decade. White
Plains, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1947. [Especially the third chapter.]
- Whaples, Robert, "Winning the
Eight-Hour Day,
1909-1919," Journal of Economic History 50(2):393-406 (June
1990).
The Financial Crisis of 2008
- Baker, Dean. Plunder
and Blunder: The Rise and Fall of the Bubble Economy.
Sausalito,
CA: PoliPoint Press,
2009.
- Baker, Dean.
False Profits: Recovering from the Bubble Economy. Sausalito, CA: PoliPoint Press, 2010.
- Shiller,
Robert. The
Subprime Solution. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2008.
The Great Depression
- Barber,
William J. Designs Within Disorder:
Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Economists, and the Shaping of American
Economic
Policy, 1933-1945. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
- Bernstein, Irving. A Caring
Society: A History of the American Worker,
1933-1941. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1985.
- Epstein, Gerald, & Thomas Ferguson. "Monetary Policy, Loan
Liquidation, and Industrial Conflict: The Federal Reserve and the Open
Market Operation of 1932." Journal
of Economic History 44(4): 957-986 (1984).
- Fearon, Peter. War,
Prosperity & Depression: The U.S. Economy 1917-45. Lawrence,
KS: University Press
of Kansas
1987.
- Friedman, Milton, & Anna Jacobson Schwartz. A Monetary
History of
the United States, 1967-1960. New York: Princeton University Press,
1963.
- Friedman, Milton, & Anna Jacobson
Schwartz. The Great Contraction, 1929-1933. New York: Princeton
University Press,
1965.
- Higgs, Robert. "Regime Uncertainty: Why the Great
Depression Lasted So Long and Why Prosperity Did Not Resume Until After
the War." The Independent Review
1(4): 561-590 (Spring 1997). Internet: http://www.independent.org/pdf/tir/tir_01_4_higgs.pdf
- Hsieh, Chang-Tai, and Christina Romer. "Was the
Federal Reserve Constrained by the Gold Standard During the Great
Depression? Evidence from the 1932 Open Market Purchase Program." Journal of Economic History 66(1):
140-176 (2006).
- Mitchell, Broadus. The Depression Decade. Armonk, NY:
M.E. Sharpe,
1975 (1947).
- Kennedy, David M. Freedom
From Fear: The American People in
Depression and War.
New York: Oxford University
Press, 2001.
- Parker, Randall E. Reflections on the Great Depression.
Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2002.
- Romer, Christina. "The Great Crash and the Onset of the
Great Depression." Quarterly
Journal of Economics 105:597-623 (1990).
- Romer, Christina. "What Ended the Great Depression?" Journal
of Economic History 52(4): 757-84 (December 1992).
- Romer, Christina. "The Nation in Depression." Journal
of Economic
Perspectives 7:19-39 (Spring 1993). [That issue contains an entire
symposium on the Great Depression, with three other articles as well.]
- Temin, Peter. Did Monetary Forces Cause the Great
Depression? New York: W.W. Norton, 1976.
- Temin, Peter. Lessons from the
Great Depression. Cambridge: MIT
Press, 1989.
- Temin, Peter, & Barrie A. Wigmore. "The End of One Big
Deflation." Explorations
in Economic History 27:483-502 (1990).
- Weinstein, Michael M. Recovery and Redistribution Under the
NIRA.
New York: North Holland, 1980.
- Wheeler, Mark, ed. The
Economics of the
Great Depression. Kalamazoo, MI: Upjohn Institute, 1998.
Immigration
- Borjas, George. Friends
or Strangers: The Impact of Immigrants on the U.S. Economy.
New York: Basic Books, 1990.
- Borjas, George. Heaven's
Door: Immigration Policy and the American Economy.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001.
- Dinnerstein, Leonard, & David M. Reimers. Ethnic Americans: A History of Immigration.
New York: Columbia University Press, 1999.
- Jones, Maldwyn Allen. American
Immigration. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.
- Portes, Alejandro, & Ruben G. Rumbaut. Immigrant America: A Potrait.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990. (Chapter 3,
"Making It in America: Occupational and Economic Adaptation," looks
particularly relevant.)
- Reimers, David M. "Old Wine in New Bottles: The Economics
Debate." Chapter 5 of Unwelcome
Strangers:American Identity and the Turn Against Immigration.
New York: Columbia University Press, 1998.
- Simon, Julian L. The
Economic Consequences of Immigration. Cambridge, MA: Basil
Blackwell and the Cato Institute, 1989.
The Oil Crisis of the 1970s
- Nossiter, Bernard D. Fat Years and Lean: The American
Economy
Since Roosevelt. New York: Harper and Row, 1990.
- Olson, Mancur. "The Productivity Slowdown, the Oil Shocks,
and the
Real Cycle." Journal of Economic Perspectives 2(4): 43-69
(Fall 1988).
- Rowen, Hobart. Self-Inflicted Wounds: From LBJ's Guns
and Butter
to Reagan's Voodoo Economics. New York: Times Books, 1994.
- Smiley, Gene. The American Economy in the Twentieth
Century.
Cincinnati: South-Western, 1994.
The Panic of 1907
- Bruner, Robert F., & Sean D.
Carr. The Panic of 1907:
Lessons Learned From the Market's Perfect Storm. Hoboken:
John Wiley & Sons, 2007.
- Tallman, Ellis W., & Jon R.
Moen. "Lessons From the Panic of 1907." Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta Economic
Review
75 (May/June 1990): 2-13. Internet:
http://www.econseminars.com/Financial%20Panics/_Pre-Subprime%20Crises/Panic%20of%201907_Atlanta%20Fed.pdf
Poverty and the Welfare System
- Berkowitz, Edward D. America's
Welfare
State: From Roosevelt to Reagan. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University
Press, 1991.
- Blank, Rebecca M. It
Takes a Nation:
A New Agenda for Fighting Poverty. New York: Russell Sage
Foundation/
Princeton University Press, 1997.
- Blank, Rebecca M. "Fighting
Poverty: Lessons
from Recent U.S. History,” Journal of Economic Perspectives
14(2):
3-19 (2000).
- Ellwood, David T.
"Anti-Poverty Policy
for Families in the Next Century: From Welfare to Work -- and Worries."
Journal
of Economic Perspectives 14(1): 187-98 (Winter 2000).
- Ellwood, David T., and Jonathan Crane. "Family Change Among
Black
Americans: What Do We Know?" Journal of Economic Perspectives
4(4): 65-84 (Fall 1990).
- Moffitt, Robert. "Incentive
Effects of the
U.S. Welfare System: A Review," Journal of Economic Literature
30:1-61
(March 1992).
- Murray, Charles. Losing Ground.
New
York: Basic Books, 1984. [Controversial and much-criticized, but also
very
influential.]
- Patterson, James T. America's
Struggle
Against Poverty 1900-1994. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1994.
- Wilson, William Julius. The
Truly Disadvantaged.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.
- Wilson, William Julius. When
Work Disappears.
New York: Vintage Books, 1996.
- Ziliak, Stephen T. "The End of
Welfare and
the Contradiction of Compassion," The Independent Review, 1996.
[Available through Interlibrary Loan or from me.]
- On the Internet, you might try the
Joint Center
for Poverty Research (http://www.jcpr.org/).
The proceedings of the Center's conference on Welfare Reform and the
Macro-Economy
held November 19-20, 1998, if you can find them, are probably a good
place
to look for recent research.
The Post-1973 Productivity Slowdown
- Baily, Martin Neil (plus
discussants), "The
Productivity Growth Slowdown by Industry," Brookings Papers on
Economic
Activity 1982(2):423-459 (1982).
- Baily, Martin Neil, & Robert
J. Gordon
(plus discussants), "The Productivity Slowdown, Measurement Issues, and
the Explosion of Computer Power," Brookings Papers on Economic
Activity 1988(2):347-431
(1988).
- Baumol, William J., Sue Anne Batey
Blackman,
& Edward N. Wolff. Productivity and American Leadership:
The
Long View. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989.
- Baumol, William J. & K.
McClennan,eds. Productivity
Growth and U.S. Competitiveness. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1985. (Includes a review essay, "The Magnitude and Causes
of the Recent Productivity Slowdown in the U.S.," by Edward N. Wolff.)
- Denison, Edward F. Accounting
for
Slower Economic Growth. Washington, DC: Brookings
Institution,
1979.
- Jorgenson, Dale W.
"Productivity and
Postwar U.S. Economic Growth." Journal of Economic
Perspectives
2(4): 23-41 (Fall 1998.) [Part of a multi-article symposium on
"The
Slowdown in Productivity Growth."]
- Williamson, Jeffrey G.,
"Productivity and
American Leadership: A Review Article," Journal of Economic
Literature
29:51-68 (March 1991).
- Wolff, Edward N., "The
Productivity Slowdown:
The Culprit at Last? Follow-Up on Hulten and Wolff," American
Economic
Review 86(5):1239-1252 (December 1996).
Prohibition
- Allen, Frederick Lewis. Only
Yesterday.
New York: Bantam Books, 1959 [1931].
- Allen, Frederick Lewis. Since
Yesterday.
New York: Bantam Books, 1960 [1945].
- Anderson, Gary, & Brian Goff.
"The Political
Economy of Prohibition in the United States, 1919-1933." Social
Science
Quarterly 75(2) (1994).
- Blocker, Jack S., Jr. "Did
Prohibition Really Work? Alcohol Prohibition as a Public Health
Innovation." American Journal
of Public Health 96(2): 233-253 (2006).
- Dighe, Ranjit. “Reversal
of Fortune: The Rockefellers and the Decline of Business Support for
Prohibition.” Essays in
Economic and Business History 24 (2006).
- Kerr, K. Austin. Organized
for Prohibition: A New History of the Anti-Saloon League.
New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985.
- Kyvig, David E. "Objection Sustained: Prohibition Repeal
and the New Deal." From Alcohol,
Reform and Society: The Liquor Issue in Social Context, edited
by Jack S. Blocker, Jr. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1979.
- Lerner, Michael. Dry Manhattan:
Prohibition in New York City.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007.
- Leuchtenberg, William E. The
Perils of
Prosperity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958. [Only a
little
on Prohibition, but a good source for general economic information
about
the 1920s.]
- Miron, Jeffrey. Drug War Crimes: The Consequences of
Prohibition. Oakland: The Independent Institute, 2004.
- Miron, Jeffrey, & Jeffrey
Zwiebel. "Alcohol
Consumption During Prohibition." American Economc Review Papers and
Proceedings 81(2):242-247 (May 1991).
- Miron, Jeffrey, & Jeffrey
Zwiebel. "The
Economic Case Against Drug Prohibition." Journal of Economic
Perspectives
9(4):175-192 (Fall 1995).
- Miron, Jeffrey. "An Economic
Analysis of Alcohol
Prohibition." Journal of Drug Issues, Fall 1998.
- Pegram, Thomas. Battling
Demon Rum: The Struggle for a Dry America, 1800-1933.
Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1999.
- Soule, George. Prosperity
Decade. White
Plains, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1947. [Only a little on Prohibition, but
a good source for general economic information about the 1920s.]
Women's Economic Progress
- Bergmann, Barbara. The
Economic
Emergence of Women.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
- Blau, Francine D. "Trends in the
Well-Being
of American Women, 1970-1995." Journal of Economic Literature
36(1):112-165
(March 1998).
- Blau, Francine D., & Lawrence M.
Kahn. “The Gender Pay Gap.” The Economists’ Voice 4(4)
(June 2007).
- Furchtgott-Roth, Diana, &
Christine Stolba. Women's
Figures: An Illustrated Guide to the Economic Progress of Women in
America.
Washington, DC: The AEI Press, 1999.
- Goldin, Claudia. "The Changing
Economic Role
of Women: A Quantitative Approach." Journal of Interdisciplinary
History
13(4): 707-733 (1983).
- Goldin, Claudia. Understanding
the Gender
Gap. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.
- Goldin, Claudia. "The Role of
World War II
in the Increase in Women's Employment." American Economic Review
81(4): 741-756 (September 1991).
- Claudia
Goldin.“The Quiet Revolution That Transformed Women’s
Employment, Education, and Family.” American Economic Review
96(2): 1-21 (May 2006).
- Goldin, Claudia, & Lawrence F.
Katz. “Career and Marriage in the Age of the
Pill.” American Economic
Review 90(2): 461-465 (May 2000).
- Kessler-Harris, Alice. Out
to Work:
A History of Wage-Earning Women in the United States. New
York:
Oxford University Press, 1982.
- Kossoudi, Sherrie A., & Laura J.
Dresser. “Working Class Rosies: Women Industrial Workers
During World War II.” Journal
of Economic History 52(2): 431-446 (June 1992).
- Matthaei, Julie. An Economic
History of
Women in America. New York: Schocken Books, 1982. (Available
through
Interlibrary Loan.)
- Rotella, Elyce, "The Equal Rights
Amendment
-- Yes, But Whose?" In Second Thoughts, edited by
Donald
McCloskey. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
- Schweitzer, Mary, "World War II
and Female
Labor Force Participation Rates," Journal of Economic History
40(1):89-95
(1980).
- Smith, James & Michael P.
Ward, "Time-Series
Growth in the Female Labor Force," Journal of Labor Economics
3(1):59-90
(1985).
- Wright, Gavin, "Understanding the
Gender Gap:
A Review Article," Journal of Economic Literature 29:1153-1163
(September
1991).
World War II and the American Economy
- Edelstein, Michael.
“War and the American
Economy in the Twentieth Century.” Chapter 6 in The Cambridge
Economic History of the United States, Volume III: The Twentieth Century,
edited by Stanley Engerman and Robert Gallman. New York:
Cambridge
University Press, 2000. (On reserve at the Penfield
Library circulation
desk).
- Higgs, Robert. "Wartime Prosperity? A Reassessment of
the U.S.
Economy in the 1940s." Journal of Economic History 52:
41-60
(1992).
- Higgs, Robert. "From Central Planning to the Market: The
American
Transition, 1945-1947." Journal of Economic History 59(3)
(September 1999).
- Higgs, Robert. "The World Wars." Chapter 14 of Government and the American Economy,
edited by Price Fishback. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
2007.
- Vernon, J.R. "World War II Fiscal Policies and the End of
the Great
Depression," Journal of Economic History 54(4): 850-68
(December
1994).
For more up-to-date (i.e., post-1970) topics, here are a few
"sources
for all seasons" -- serials that provide scholarly yet accessible
coverage
of many current economic events and much recent economic history.
Browsing them is likely to be fruitful:
- Economic Report of the President (published
yearly).
These reports, by the President's Council of Economic Advisers,
typically
do a good job of covering recent economic trends and events (though, of
course, they tend to reflect the political biases of whichever
presidential
administration they were written for). The data tables at the end
of each volume contain a wealth of useful information.
- Journal of Economic Literature (published
quarterly).
The review articles at the beginning often deal with current economic
events
and always provide a thorough overview of the relevant economics
literature,
as well as an exhaustive list of sources.
- Journal of Economic Perspectives (published
quarterly).
This is the most student-accessible of the American Economic
Association's
publications, and its many of its articles and "symposia" (collections
of articles) deal with recent episodes in economic history.
- American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings
(published
yearly, usually in May, and part of each year's volume of the American
Economic Review). The articles in here tend to be concise and
relatively accessible and are often very timely in their coverage of
current
economic events.