The contributions of innovations, factor endowments and institutions to American industrialization are examined through analysing the rise of the American portland cement industry. Minerals abundance contributed in multiple ways to the spectacular rise of the industry from the 1890s. However,...

Do unions really impede manufacturers’ output flexibility? If so, in what ways? The authors propose a methodology for quantifying George Stigler's concept of output flexibility and for decomposing the effects of unionization on average cost differences between union and non-union plants. Using...