Before the middle of the nineteenth century most laws enacted in the United States were special bills that granted favors to specific individuals, groups, or localities. This fundamentally inegalitarian system provided political elites with important tools that they could use to reward...

We usually consider it progress when a country begins to shift from an autocratic to a democratic form of government. However, the introduction of elections and other early trappings of democracy often has the perverse effect of exacerbating political instability. It also increases the...

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...

During the 1840s, twelve American states adopted new constitutions. Eleven of the twelve states adopted new procedures for issuing government debt and for chartering corporations through general incorporation acts. These institutional innovations were American inventions, and today hard budget...

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

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 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...

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...

The United States was the first nation to allow open access to the corporate form to its citizens. The state of Massachusetts was not only one of the first states to provide its members with legally sanctioned tools to create organizations and enable open access but, on a per capita basis, had...

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...