The Recession of 1937-38 is often cited as illustrating the dangers of withdrawing fiscal and monetary stimulus too early in a weak recovery. Yet our understanding of this severe downturn is incomplete: existing studies find that changes in fiscal policy were small in comparison to the magnitude...

A number of writers have recently questioned whether labor productivity or per capita incomes were ever higher in the United Kingdom than in the United States. We show that although the United States already had a substantial labor productivity lead in industry as early as 1840, especially in...

Britain's repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 was the signature trade policy event of the nineteenth century. This paper provides a quantitative general equilibrium evaluation of the repeal on sectoral output and employment, factor prices and income distribution, international trade and the terms of...