BA, Oberlin College, 2019, Economics

How did the economic interests of the delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention impact delegate voting before and after the resolution of the Great Compromise? This research introduces the use of a delegate's deviation from his state's majority as the dependent variable in a model that divides the Convention into two periods around the Compromise. Covariates include several measures of a delegate's economic interest, proxies for his personal ideology, and controls for his place of origin. Results indicate that three economic interests (owning a greater number of slaves, a home county further from navigable water, and holding public securities) significantly impacted the likelihood of a delegate voting contrary to the majority position of his state in a way that was not the same before and after the Compromise. These results imply not only that personal economic interests were significant players during the creation of the U.S. Constitution, but that the structure of the legislative branch and these three economic interests go hand in hand.

Committee: Edward F. McKelvey (Committee Chair); Barbara J. Craig (Committee Member); Maggie Brehm (Committee Member); Christopher Andrew James Cotter (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; Economic History; Economic Theory; Economics; History; Legal Studies; Political Science; Social Research

Master of Arts in History, Youngstown State University, 2024, Department of Humanities

The late nineteenth century's Gilded Age witnessed numerous changes within American society, economics, and government. It was in this atmosphere of controversial business practices, rapid economic fluctuations, collaboration between special interests and the government, and lasting effects from the Civil War period that two significant factions, the Populists and the Mugwumps, voiced criticism. The Mugwumps were representative of the classical liberal concepts of laissez-faire, sought the overall benefit of society at large, and rejected any use of government to aid one segment of society at the expense of others. The Populists promoted a unique “anti-monopoly” vision which strove to elevate the interests of the “common man” in response to the government favors which often benefitted politically connected business interests. While both the Populists and Mugwumps ultimately failed to enact their respective programs to completion, they each presented coherent alternatives which the American government and economy could have followed, and they repeatedly placed their principles above strict partisanship. This thesis analyzes the Populists and the Mugwumps both in their similarities and their differences, and concludes that while both factions differed philosophically, they shared similar methods.

Committee: Amy Fluker PhD (Advisor); David Simonelli PhD (Committee Member); Brian Bonhomme PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; Economic History; History; Political Science

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2018, History

The following analyzes the development of the transatlantic copper market at a time when copper was a key ingredient of the second Industrial Revolution (1870-1930). Its findings suggest that international metal trading companies (in conjunction with the London Metal Exchange) functioned to effectively check oligopolistic efforts by large copper producers during an era when other producer industries like oil and steel came to be defined by such competition. Time and time again, dominant producers of copper (e.g., Anaconda, ASARCO, and Rio Tinto) sought ways to manipulate supply and prices to their advantage, and time and time again, nimble trading firms – most notable among them Metallgesellschaft – were well positioned to undermine such anticompetitive efforts, and profit in the process. More than just a capitalist game of cat and mouse, the producer v. trader struggle over profits and copper supply is a novel insight as it explains why cartels and monopoly-minded firms struggle to achieve super-normal profits when subjected to the competitive dynamics of futures markets. While the intense competition emanating outward from the London Metal Exchange defined the state of the copper trade through 1914, economic nationalist policies and increased vertical integration in the industry allowed American producer's to wrestle control of the trade from the international dealers, which ultimately fed concerns of mineral insecurity among European nations by the 1930s.

Committee: David Hammack Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Kenneth Ledford Ph.D. (Committee Member); John Flores Ph.D. (Committee Member); David Clingingsmith Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Economic History; Entrepreneurship; History

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2016, History

This project examines the economic, political and diplomatic history of China and the United States by focusing on the monetary metals of silver and gold. In the 19th century, as many countries, including the United States, went on the gold standard, China remained one of the final places in the world that stayed on the silver standard. At the same time, the United States was a major producer of silver. From the end of the Qing dynasty (1644-1912), through the Beiyang period (1912-1927) and into the Nanjing Decade (1927-1937), various Chinese governments debated how to reform its monetary system: whether to stay on silver, to go on gold or to adopt some other monetary arrangement. This dissertation argues that the period between the 1870s and 1930s represents a cycle of monetary interactions between China and the United States. During this period, the chief issues was how to change the Chinese monetary system; after the mid-1930s, the chief issue became how to support and stabilize the new currency, the fabi. This project contributes, chronologically and thematically, to the growing but still small number of English-language works that focus on Chinese monetary history and addresses issues of interest to historians of China, historians of the United States and economic historians.

Committee: Christopher Reed Dr. (Advisor); Ying Zhang Dr. (Committee Member); Steve Conn Dr. (Committee Member); Jennifer Siegel Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: History

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2007, History

This dissertation explores roots of the current urban crisis in the United States. Most scholarly explanations associate the problem, particularly of high levels of African-American poverty, with deindustrialization, which has stripped cities of the factory jobs that once sustained working-class communities. My account deviates from the standard tale of black male unemployment by focusing on shifting patterns of African-American women's labor—both paid and unpaid. Using Baltimore as a case study, it argues that public rather than industrial-sector employment served as the foundation of Baltimore's post-World War II African-American middle and working classes. Women outpaced men in winning government jobs. Concentrated in social welfare agencies, they used their new influence over public policy to improve the city's delivery of public services. Black women's efforts to build an infrastructure for sustainable community development put them at odds in municipal policy-making battles with city officials and business leaders intent upon revitalizing Baltimore through investment in a tourism industry. The social services workers scored some important victories, helping to alleviate poverty by shifting to the government some of the responsibility for health, child, and elder care women earlier provided in the private sphere. The conservative ascendancy of the 1970s and 1980s, reversed many of the gains African-American public-sector workers had won. Intent upon resuscitating the United States' status in the global economy, American presidents, influenced by conservative economists and their elite backers, made macroeconomic and urban policy decisions that justified extensive public-sector retrenchment and cuts or changes to social programs. Public-sector workers and their unions, most notably the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), fought with limited success to prevent the transformation of American public policy. Neoliberal policies ero (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Kevin Boyle (Advisor) Subjects: History, United States

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2013, English

My dissertation demonstrates how literary responses to the United States' first widespread financial crises—the Panics of 1819, 1837, and 1857—gave form to the abstract but increasingly violent forces governing the brave new economic world. Previous economic critics, working under the rubric of the New Historicism, tend to emphasize how literature rehearses arguments about the U.S. economy at the level of theme or plot. Such scholarship, however, obscures how literary form itself conveys economic policy. Over the course of this project's five chapters, I argue that Washington Irving's picturesque sketches (1819-20), James Fenimore Cooper's discursive romances (1821-23), Ralph Waldo Emerson's transcendentalist addresses (1837), Catharine Maria Sedgwick's didactic allegories (1836-37), and Herman Melville's anti-novel (1857) are fundamentally concerned with the economic problems of panics, including excess, abundance, and scarcity. Literary engagement with panic reveals itself, for example, in the sprawling style of Cooper's The Spy advocates the expansion of free trade to spur the economy in the early 1820s. Performing opposite work, the carefully controlled allegory of Sedgwick's “Who, and What, Has Not Failed” attempts to contain the rapid growth of the money supply in 1837. Most radically, Melville's The Confidence-Man, in resisting narrative closure, belies the blind optimism in market outcomes driving investment in 1857. Through readings of an array of panic-era literature, then, this project concludes that the coincidence of crises and important moments in U.S. literary history, typically mentioned in standard histories as incidental, is no accident: financial distress demanded artistry, and literature thrived as the market crashed.

Committee: Elizabeth Hewitt (Advisor) Subjects: American Literature; Economic History

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Akron, 2024, History

Between 1896 and 1938 Cleveland developed into one of the nation's leading Industrial centers. Cleveland's population of 262,353, which ranked tenth in the nation in 1890, increased to 900,249 by 1930 and reflected this industrial growth. Tom L. Johnson, mayor of the city from 1901 to 1909, often considered the greatest American mayor of the period, built a municipal government that attempted to deal with the urban conditions manifested by this industrial growth. At the same time, Cleveland's business and civil leaders argued that the physical city needed to project an image of modernity and progress that matched the industrial and economic production that had transformed the way of life for the residents of the nation's “sixth city.” Clevelanders had begun to realize that their city, with its growing population and accumulation of wealth due to it industrial prominence, was capable of emulating and rivaling some of great cities of Europe. This elite vision, when realized (first in the Group Plan of government buildings, and later with the Cleveland Union Terminal) often discarded and pushed to the periphery the poor (working classes) and “immoral” who lived, worked, and shopped in the spaces that were demolished and reconstructed in the creation of an imagined community of progress and modernity.

Committee: Kevin Kern (Advisor); David Cohen (Committee Member); Kenneth Bindas (Committee Member); Martha Santos (Committee Member); Stephen Harp (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; History; Urban Planning

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1932, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2022, Economics

Were working women from 1900 to 1940 more likely to find a spouse within their same occupation than in another occupation? Our dataset is made up of complete count decennial census data from IPUMS covering 1900 through 1940. We focus on five occupations specifically to limit the study: actresses, physicians and surgeons, professors, teachers, and government officials. As a point of comparison, we also look at women working in manufacturing and agriculture. To determine if working women were more likely to marry within their occupation, we apply the Separable Extreme Value Index from Chiappori et. al. (2020) and the Altham Statistic from Altham and Ferrie (2007) to determine if this was the case. We find that, for our selected occupations, working women were more likely to find a spouse within their same occupation for all of the time covered, but the degree to which it was more likely decreased over time.

Committee: Gregory Niemesh (Advisor) Subjects: Economic History; Economics

Bachelor of Arts, Wittenberg University, 2020, International Studies

In the late 1950's, African nations began to gain independence from colonizers and as such, assistance was needed. France and the Soviet Union were among the nations that took advantage of the opportunity. In jumping in to assist the newly independent nations, they were given the opportunity to increase their status as world leaders and strengthen their global economies and politics. Beginning with an analysis on French and Soviet involvement on the African continent from 1960 to 1990, this essay explores the reasons for involvement, the policies implemented by each country, the advantages Africa provided, and the extent to which each was able to influence the budding nations. In its conclusion, this work compares the French and Soviet involvement in Africa's post-colonialism.

Committee: Scott Rosenberg (Advisor); Christian Raffensperger (Committee Member); Lila Zaharkov (Committee Member) Subjects: African History; African Studies; European History; History; International Relations; Russian History; World History

MA, Kent State University, 2019, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Geography

The ongoing populist backlash against the liberal-democratic world order has strong geographical dimensions and demands a reckoning with growing spatial inequality. Until now, economic geography has largely viewed the divergent trajectories of local and regional economies as a either a process of evolutionary selection or the byproduct of localized institutional structures. However, this thesis proposes a new framework to synthesize the two, conceptualizing geographical inequality as the result of agent-driven equilibrium selection within an evolving complex system. Using a post-industrial community in eastern Ohio as a case, three studies demonstrate the usefulness of this approach. First, an historical survey traces the rise, stagnation, and decline of the Youngstown area's economy as the result of changing competitive landscapes and the (in)ability of local institutions to coordinate a response. Second, a quantitative analysis relates initial community characteristics to outcomes following the Great Recession. Here, neighborhood economic norms and membership effects offered the most compelling explanation for why some communities were resilient in the face of the shock while others fared poorly. Third, a mixed-methods approach combines qualitative fieldwork with non-cooperative game theory and illustrates how institutional coordination failure has trapped much of the Mahoning Valley in a sub-optimal state of development. The overwhelming evidence from these studies leads to the conclusion that for place economies, evolutionary fitness should be considered synonymous with institutional fitness. That is, norms around cooperation and economic activity are the driving forces behind local development outcomes amidst macroeconomic change.

Committee: David Kaplan (Advisor); Jennifer Mapes (Committee Member); Nadia Greenhalgh-Stanley (Committee Member) Subjects: Economic History; Economic Theory; Economics; Geographic Information Science; Geography

Master of Arts, Oberlin College, 1941, History

The trend in American History in recent years has been to put a much-needed emphasis on the social history of the American people. Studies have been made of their habits, customs, reform movements, economic problems--in short, anything that informs us of the way our ancestors lived and behaved has become history. With this new interest in social habits, history has ceased to be the chronicle of a series of revolutions, treaties. elections, and wars. It has become a living, breathing story of the rise and development of America and the people who inhabited it. This change is not meant to exclude the importance of political history; on the contrary, an understanding of political movements is enhanced by a thorough knowledge of the social and economic forces in operation at the time. History was made at the cross-roads general store and in the local machine shop as well as in the stately halls of Congress. Today it is our privilege to study the social scene or America's past and from it gain an insight into the way past Americans lived, acted, and thought.What has all this to do with the bicycle? At first thought the bicycle seems a very unimportant, every-day object; but in the era that I am discussing its influence was strongly felt in the economic, social, and even political lite of the people. I have divided the subject into four divisions: I. History, II. Organizations, III. Social and Economic Influence, IV. The Gasoline Age. A brief discussion of these four divisions here will be of aid to the reader in following the story of the bicycle and in understanding the thesis which I develop.

Committee: (Advisor) Subjects: Economics; History; Social Structure

BA, Kent State University, 2015, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Political Science

China's Communist revolution served as a rebellion against both its despotic mandarin elite and their traditions as well as the presiding global trade order that flooded China with narcotics and ensnared all the rungs of society within its grasp. Together, dynastic decay and foreign intrigue fractured the country s ability to function as a coherent society. With both aspects of the limping Republican China discredited alongside the defunct dynastic system, the intervening period between the end of the civil war, the Communist revolution, Mao s reign, his death, and the coronation of Deng Xiaoping led the People s Republic of China (PRC) to shed its official doctrines even as its foundational organization, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), survived. Thanks to China s success after the Communist revolution and Deng s coronation, the PRC s story meanwhile not only became the larger story of East Asia, but also that of both the United States; special postwar San Francisco framework, and of the United States; broader projection of Open Door policies worldwide. Within the hierarchy of global capitalism, China consequently assumed a special role in East Asian and global production; guided in many ways by the hand of the United States. High level dialogue at the twilight of the Obama Administration suggests a world in which China's place is perceived with great suspicion even as the country's prospects continue to slide and grow more uncertain. This suspicion casts a shadow over the many nearby opportunities for cooperation within the most important bilateral relationship in the world from the outset of the 21st century. For China and the CCP, nothing here onward may be viewed with certainty, but for the world America made, any significant, continued Chinese climb, however likely, portends major repercussions both for the global liberal order and for the survival of the human species and the many factors that weigh upon it.

Committee: Leslie Heaphy Dr. (Advisor); Richard Robyn Dr. (Committee Member); Joshua Stacher Dr. (Committee Member); Kimberly Winebrenner Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Asian Studies; Economic History; Economic Theory; International Relations

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2016, History

This dissertation seeks to move pirates and their economic relationships from the social and legal margins of the Atlantic world to the center of it and integrate them into the broader history of early modern colonization and commerce. In doing so, I examine piracy and illicit activities such as smuggling and shipwrecking through a new lens. They act as a form of economic engagement that could not only be used by empires and colonies as tools of competitive international trade, but also as activities that served to fuel the developing Caribbean-Atlantic economy, in many ways allowing the plantation economy of several Caribbean-Atlantic islands to flourish. Ultimately, in places like Jamaica and Barbados, the success of the plantation economy would eventually displace the opportunistic market of piracy and related activities. Plantations rarely eradicated these economies of opportunity, though, as these islands still served as important commercial hubs: ports loaded, unloaded, and repaired ships, taverns attracted a variety of visitors, and shipwrecking became a regulated form of employment. In places like Tortuga and the Bahamas where agricultural production was not as successful, illicit activities managed to maintain a foothold much longer. Historians have begun to challenge plantation economy model that has served as the dominant paradigm in Caribbean-Atlantic history. A growing awareness that Caribbean-Atlantic socioeconomic history needs to be reproblematized with an emphasis on diversity and economic diversification has shed new light on slavery in the region. My work contributes to the new historiography on Caribbean-Atlantic diversification by illustrating how piracy itself not only encompassed a diverse range of socioeconomic activities, but widely contributed to the Caribbean-Atlantic economy in understudied ways—including the slave trade of the region.

Committee: Margaret Newell (Advisor); John Brooke (Committee Member); David Staley (Committee Member) Subjects: American History; Caribbean Studies; Economic History; History; Regional Studies

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2015, Arts and Sciences: Classics

Temples are at the heart of most attempts to understand Roman policy in Egypt after Octavian annexed the province in 30 BC. This dissertation examines the evidence for the temples as economic agents in the early Roman period. Through a close reading of a crucial text (P.Tebt. 2.302), I demonstrate that the current scholarly consensus, formed around the assumption that the Roman state aggressively targeted Egyptian religion through the confiscation of temple property, cannot be correct. A new examination, building on our understanding of the economic activities of the temples in the Pharaonic, Persian, and Ptolemaic periods, shows that the temples maintained sometimes substantial estates in the Roman period, and engaged in other economic activities, including agricultural industries and religious services (e.g., mummification). I take the temples of two Fayum villages, Tebtunis and Soknopaiou Nesos, as case studies. Through a careful study of these temples, I illustrate the role that their economic activities played in creating networks of overlapping religious, economic, social, and political interests. These networks allowed the temples to mediate between the Roman state and the people in these villages, especially after the development of a Roman administrative infrastructure to oversee the temples. The evidence for these temples shows in addition that their economic activities were often deliberately arranged. The temple of Soknopaios in Soknopaiou Nesos, for example, oversaw a network of smaller production centers and subsidiary religious structures elsewhere in the Fayum. Roman administration of Egyptian temples was less strict than that by the Ptolemies, and fits into recognizable patterns from elsewhere in the Roman Empire. The temple administrators, whose hierarchy is also described, focused on long-term, risk-averse activities, such as long-term leases and selling certain non-administrative priestly offices (and the associated shares of temple profits). In (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Peter Van Minnen Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Arthur Verhoogt Ph.D. (Committee Member); Getzel Cohen Ph.D. (Committee Member); Holt Parker Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Ancient Civilizations

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2014, Economics

The free-banking era provides a unique time period to study bank market structure. Using data from historical maps and the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research Censuses of the United States, I build upon previous research to investigate the relationship between railroads and antebellum banks from 1854-60. I first use simple ordinary least squares models to estimate the equilibrium relationships between railroads and balance sheet composition. I then estimate an endogenous market structure model that relates railroads to unobserved bank profitability through the number of observed banks. I find that railroads increased bank lending but reduced bank leverage (as related to banknotes), suggesting that railroads caused banks to shift their business emphases. My results further indicate that railroads had a net negative effect on banking profitability. I conclude that reduced bank leverage, as opposed to increased banking activity through lending, increased antebellum bank stability.

Committee: Charles Moul Dr. (Advisor); William Even Dr. (Committee Member); Gregory Niemesh Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Banking; Economic History; Economics

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2000, Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics

This dissertation develops a model of banking regulation from a positive political economy perspective. The main characteristic of this model, based on the interrelation between regulators and incumbent banks, is that regulation is driven by public interest and political economy motives. The public interest of regulators includes the efficiency and soundness of the banking industry. The political economy motives consist of two elements. First, incumbent banks demand regulation to obtain higher than competitive proits (rent-seeking motive). Second, regulation by itself is rewarding for the regulator. In the model, the government finances the public-sector deficit with banking resources (fiscal motive). Regulators make use of two instruments. The first is to require banks to hold minimum capital adequacy levels. Theory predicts that increasing bank capital reduces the risk of bank failure. The second instrument is the control of entry, which makes bank charters valuable, so banks follow a conservative behavior to protect their charters. Entry restrictions, however, have a negative impact on efficiency in the industry. Regulatory policy is based on a trade-off: soundness versus efficiency. The model synthesizes the public interest and political economy motives of regulation. A main prediction is that regulation is dynamically time-inconsistent because the regulator uses its discretionary and coercive power to renege on the agreement with the incumbent banks to obtain windfall revenues. The model empirically fits the Mexican experience. Non-public interest factors weighted more in the making of regulatory policy in the 1940-1956 period. This was a period of easy bank entry and increasing public sector budget financing with bank resources. Public interest motives were more important for 1957-1978 and for the overall 1940-1978 period. These findings support the claim that long-run growth with financial stability of the Mexican economy was based on two elements. First, fin (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Claudio Gonzalez-Vega (Advisor) Subjects:

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2012, History

My dissertation, “'Touchstones of Truth': The Enlightenment of J.-B.-L. Gresset, L.M. Deschamps, and S.-N.-H. Linguet,” focuses on three key but little studied opponents of the philosophes. I argue that the writer Jean-Baptiste-Louis Gresset (1709-1777), the philosopher Francois-Leger-Marie Deschamps (1716-1774), and the lawyer and political theorist Simon-Nicolas-Henri Linguet (1736-1794) opposed the philosophes in the name of a set of universally valid principles against what they took to be the philosophes' superficial, self-serving, and haphazard politicization of language, philosophy and the social sciences. These three intellectuals warned that such politicization fostered economic, political, and intellectual inequality as well as cultural alienation., thereby undermining the Enlightenment's own vision. Gresset supported a "civic republican" political economy of virtue, and warned about the dangers of the consumer culture fostered by the philosophes. The roots of his cultural criticism lay in moral and political concerns that found expression in a patriotic discourse stressing the importance of social "harmony" and the common good while rejecting any temptation to belong to a “party.” In this spirit, Gresset defended the "ancient constitution" against idle monks, royal or ministerial despotism, parlementarian rebellion, and the philosophes. Radically egalitarian and idiosyncratically constructed from elements of scholastic theology and neoplatonic philosophy, Dom Deschamps' critique of the philosophes' dependence on the privileged serves as a useful guide for exploring the consistency and the limits of the second or theological phase of the French Enlightenment. Dom Deschamps stood at the center of a circle consisting of active soldiers and army veterans, most of them nobles, who combined cosmopolitanism, a serious knowledge of the natural sciences and of philosophy, political concerns, and a libertine life. Rural, castle-bound, and exclusively male, this E (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Dale K. Van Kley PhD (Advisor); Alice Conklin PhD (Advisor); Nicholas Breyfogle PhD (Committee Member); Diane Birckbichler PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Economic History; European History; Foreign Language; History; Literature; Religious History; Theology