Neither economics nor political science can explain the process of modern social development. The fact that developed societies always have developed economies and developed polities suggests that the connection between economics and politics must be a fundamental part of the development...

Why did states dominate investments in economic development in early America? Between 1787 and 1860, the national government%u2019s $54 million on promoting transportation infrastructure while the states spent $450 million. Using models of legislative choice, we show that Congress could not...

Africa and Latin America secured their independence from European colonial rule a century and half apart: most of Latin America after 1820 and most of Africa after 1960. Despite the distance in time and space, they share important similarities. In each case independence was followed by political...

During the presidential election of 1932 Franklin Roosevelt promised a New Deal for the American people. Our goal is to describe the changes wrought by the New Deal. To what extent did the New Deal expand existing programs? What new programs were created at all levels of government? How did the...

The critical election of 1932 represented a turning point in the future electoral successes of the Democrats and Republicans for over three decades. This paper seeks to measure the importance of the New Deal in facilitating the Democrats' control of the federal government well into the 1960s. We...

We examine the importance of Roosevelt's 'relief, recovery, and reform' motives to the distribution of New Deal funds across over 3,000 U.S. counties, program by program. The major relief programs most closely followed Roosevelt's three R's. Other programs were tilted more in favor of areas with...

In 1841 and 1842, eight states and the Territory of Florida defaulted on their sovereign debts. Traditional histories of the default crisis have stressed the causal role of the depression that began with the Panic of 1837, unexpected revenue shortfalls from canal and bank investments as a result...

The critical role of governance in the promotion of economic development has created intense interest in the manner in which the United States eliminated corruption. This paper examines the concept of corruption in American history; tracing the term corruption to its roots in British political...

The American social welfare system was transformed during the 1930s. Prior to the New Deal public relief was administered almost exclusively by local governments. The administration of local public relief was widely thought to be corrupt. Beginning in 1933, federal, state, and local governments...

In the 1830s the British and American economies were hit by a series of shared macroeconomic shocks. This paper investigates the role of markets for Americas State bonds in Britain and the U.S. during and between the crises in 1837, 1839, and 1842. There is strong evidence that the crises in...