During the postbellum period, per capita real output could not keep pace with
population growth.
The Economic Stabilization Act of 1970 gave private industry the right to establish
wage and price controls, but President Nixon vetoed this power.
By the start of the Civil War, the value of woman’s labor was, on average, equal to that
of an adult male due to technological advancements.
Mechanic lien laws grant property rights to labor. They allow labor to make claims
against the real property of businesses for work completed or materials supplied.
For the first time since the Civil War (1861″65), laborers were forced into active
military service during World War I (1914″18).
The Greenbackers may be characterized fairly as inflationists.
Slaves had incentives to remain docile, not resist their work demands and continue to
depend on slavery as an institution according to Elkins (1959).
The opportunity cost of the U.S. producing tea or coffee is measured by the value of the
foregone production alternativemanufacturing or staples.
The labor movement has been largely an economic movement, not a political
phenomenon.
Capitalists like Henry Ford welcomed the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. It relieved
them of the responsibilities associated with contracting wages, hours and working
conditions.
Secured and enforced individual property rights provide individuals with incentive to
allocate resources efficiently and effectively, advance technologically, take on strategic
risks and trade domestically and internationally.
When the U.S. economy expands, foreign investment in and immigration to the U.S.
usually contracts.
Tariff rates make everyone better off in the country by protecting it from foreign
competition.
The large influx of immigrant families between 1860 and 1910 caused the total
population to grow at a faster rate than the work force.
Open-hearth technology quickly replaced the Bessemer converter in the steel industry.
This is an example of Schumpeter’s creative destruction process.
Continued U.S. economic growth requires little institutional and technological change.
Fogel and Engerman (1974) argue that slavery was economically viable until 1860.
Federal land policy of the United States was much less generous toward squatters than
some of the colonial government’s land policies before Independence.
During World War II (1941″45), the market coordinated what the government
commanded in terms of production.
Martin’s research (1971) supports the claim that the Interstate Commerce Commission
(ICC) was a federal regulatory agency, The ICC was designed to capture market gains
for the consumers of railroad services as well as for the railroad industrialists.
The steel plow and horse-drawn reaper increased labor productivity on all farms, small
and large.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 did not allow popular sovereignty over the issue of
slavery.
Wartime mobilization during World War I raised the shares of income going to labor.
This increase continued through the 1920s.
The Second Bank of the United States lost its charter, in part, because Andrew Jackson
effectively argued to the voting members of Congress that the “central” bank was a
monopoly and largely influenced by the corrupt and fraudulent behavior of a wealthy
minority and foreign investors.
Tobacco could not be grown in England. It could only be produced in the colonial
South.
Prices, on average, increased in the food market; the demand for food had simply
grown faster than supply from the end of the Civil War in 1865 to the beginning of
World War I in 1913.
During the antebellum period, two systems of land use emergedthe self-sufficient
system of the North, which did not rely on specialization, and the specialized system of
the South, which concentrated the use of slaves.
Expansionary fiscal policy includes an increase in government spending, a decrease in
taxes or some combination of the two.
Union membership is likely to fall as growth in tertiary employment occurs in the
private sector.
Immigration significantly contributed to economic growth in the U.S. throughout the
entire period between Independence and the Civil War.
The Webb-Pomerene Act of 1918 prohibits price fixing and other anticompetitive
agreements that pertain solely to goods for export.
During World War I (1914″18), hourly wages
(a) decreased in nominal and real terms.
(b) increased in nominal and real terms.
(c) increased in nominal terms but decreased in real terms.
(d) decreased in nominal terms but increased in real terms.
Hughes and Cain (2011) give some credit to which of the following factors for the
1860″1910 increase in the number of people employed, shorter work days and higher
real incomes?
(a) A decrease in the number of immigrants
(b) A closed economy with no imports coming into or exports going out of the U.S.
(c) Mechanical power and capital accumulation
(d) All of the above
The New Deal reduced
(a) government involvement in private affairs.
(b) individual liberty.
(c) taxes.
(d) rent-seeking.
Andrew Carnegie dominated the steel industry on the basis of the Bessemer converter.
This technology permitted unskilled men to produce large quantities of steel at
relatively low costs. This technology was
(a) invented by Carnegie.
(b) stolen from the British inventor Bessemer.
(c) acquired legally from the British inventor Bessemer.
(d) imported from Germany.
The perceived specie shortage led colonists to invent:
(a) Country money
(b) Paper money
(c) Inflationary dollars
(d) Conservative money
Between 1860 and 1914, the growth rate in industrial production
(a) fell behind the growth in the overall U.S. population.
(b) outpaced the growth rates in the labor force and population.
(c) was less than the growth rate in agricultural production.
(d) fell behind both the growth rate in agricultural production and that of the overall
U.S. population.
The market for U.S. cars was impacted significantly by consumers’ options to buy
which of the following?
(a) Used cars
(b) New cars produced by U.S. producers
(c) New cars produced by foreign producers
(d) All of the above
Between 1945 and 1950, federal expenditures
(a) dropped by two-fifths despite the Marshall Plan.
(b) dropped by two-fifths because of dissipation of wartime expenditures.
(c) increased by two-fifths because of increased spending in private consumer and
business markets.
(d) increased by two-fifths because of the Marshall Plan.
Why did railroads come under government regulation?
(a) Disgruntled shippers and travelers raised an outcry about the routes of railroads.
(b) Some people effectively argued that railroads were charging “unfair” rates.
(c) The railroad industry was too competitive, thus driving rates below those
necessary to ensure normal profits for railroad companies.
(d) All of the above are correct.
With regard to indentured servitude,
(a) indentured servants were typically slaves.
(b) this institutional arrangement benefited all parties entering the contract.
(c) this institutional arrangement restricted the supply of labor for the colonies.
(d) all of the above answers are correct.
According to Chandler and Cortada (2000), the driving force of the U.S. economy has
been what since the beginning?
(a) Agriculture
(b) Manufacturing
(c) Information
(d) Steel and automobiles
What does the study of the balance of international trade and finance between 1790 and
1860 help American economic historians do?
(a) Understand what the U.S. sold to the rest of the world
(b) Understand what the rest of the world sold to the U.S.
(c) Determine if there is a link between these international patterns and economic
growth in the U.S.
(d) All of the above
By the late 1880s, the main difference between the American Federation of Labor
(AFL) and the Knights of Labor was
(a) the relatively low dues charged members by their AFL locals.
(b) the broader membership base of AFL locals compared to the Knights.
(c) the AFL’s commitment to “progressive” politics.
(d) the narrow membership qualifications of AFL locals compared to the Knights.
Consumption patterns in the U.S. between 1790 and 1860 indicate a growing preference
for
(a) basic necessities.
(b) high quality clothes and homes.
(c) simple, standardized and mass-produced goods.
(d) luxury items.
What was the first federal government agency established to regulate business?
(a) The Federal Trade Commission
(b) The Securities and Exchange Commission
(c) The Federal Power Commission
(d) The Interstate Commerce Commission
Regarding the regional distribution of population,
(a) New England as a whole continued to increase in its population base faster than the
Middle Colonies throughout the colonial period.
(b) Virginia had the smallest population of any colony at the time of the Revolution.
(c) at the end of the colonial period, nearly half the total colonial population resided in
the five Southern colonies.
(d) the distribution remained firmly concentrated in what is now called the thirteen
original colonies.
According to historian Charles Beard’s analysis and interpretation, the Constitution was
(a) divinely inspired.
(b) strongly favored by the vast majority of the colonists.
(c) influenced by the economic self-interest of the delegates to the Constitutional
Convention.
(d) of little importance to future economic growth.
The reminiscences of two famous people who were born into slavery, Frederick
Douglass and Booker T. Washington, include all of the following except
(a) The common custom among slave owners was to ensure that small children of
slaves had the nurturing of both parents until they reached good working age.
(b) Their early years were not very different from thousands of other slave children.
(c) Their fathers were white men.
(d) They saw their mothers infrequently, only a few times in their lives, or only
sometimes in the early morning hours before their mothers went to work or late at
night.
The Great Depression is still the subject of controversy, including the question(s) of
(a) what caused the initial downturn.
(b) why the economy contracted for so long (1929 to 1932) and why it contracted so
much (real GNP fell about 30%).
(c) whether government policy helped or hindered the recovery attempt.
(d) all of the above.
What did the Lever Food Control Act of 1917 give the U.S. federal government the
power to do?
(a) Take over factories during periods of war
(b) Inspect meat-packing plants and control the quality of work completed
(c) Buy, sell and distribute food during times of peace
(d) Seize Congressional control over food-related production
The Gallatin Plan (1808)
(a) was a plan by the U.S. Senate for a comprehensive system of internal land and water
transport in the eastern part of the country to be built by the federal government.
(b) was promoted on the basis that only the federal government could command
sufficient resources to build a transportation system.
(c) was partially implemented but not completed by the federal government because of
concerns about the constitutionality of such federal action.
(d) was characterized by all of the above.
The colonial region with the smallest deficit with the United Kingdom between
1768″1772 was
(a) New England
(b) the Middle Colonies
(c) the Southern Colonies
(d) the New England and Middle Colonies
Economies of scale result as a firm increases in size and expands its use of resources.
Productivity increases and fixed production costs are spread over an increased number
of goods and services. Which of the following are types of economies of scale?
(a) Command economies
(b) External economies
(c) Open economies
(d) Closed economies
Early nineteenth century banks primarily
(a) enabled small savers to buy shares in a diversified portfolio of investments.
(b) accepted and managed checkable deposits.
(c) provided a broad range of financial services.
(d) relied on a federal safety fund in times of well spread crisis.
During the great canal-building era, from roughly 1815 to 1843, Hughes and Cain
(2011) claim that
(a) most canals earned normal profits.
(b) no canals earned profits.
(c) all canals in the initial period of construction earned normal profits but none did in
the later period because of over-construction and competition from the railroads.
(d) the Erie Canal was one of the few, perhaps the only one, to earn normal profits.
What did the fiscal conservatives of the Eisenhower administration (1953″61) want?
(a) Balanced budgets and with manageable inflation
(b) Inflation and budget surpluses
(c) A balanced budget and high rates of interest
(d) Laissez-faire economy
In 2002 the steel industry successfully lobbied Congress to impose a tariff of 8 to 30
percent on foreign steel. Which of the following is an unintended consequence of this
tariff?
(a) U.S. steel firms were protected from the price cutting efforts of foreign competitors
benefiting from governmental support in their countries.
(b) U.S. steel firms could charge higher steel prices in order to boost profits.
(c) Many steel-using firms in the U.S. went out of business and about 200,000 workers
lost their jobs to higher steel prices.
(d) American steel workers kept their jobs.
The disposal and settlement of the public lands, according to Hughes and Cain (2011),
(a) went pretty much, in practice, as Jefferson had envisioned.
(b) had both intended and unintended consequences.
(c) occurred in an orderly and efficient manner for the most part.
(d) was adequately funded and well-organized in execution.
The exploitation of what resource supplied more than half of the increase in mechanical
energy in 1860″1910?
(a) Petroleum
(b) Water power
(c) Anthracite coal
(d) Bituminous coal
The inflation that occurred during the Civil War (1861″1865)
(a) was a means of expropriating resources to fight the war.
(b) was a form of taxation to provide resources to fight the war.
(c) represented a decrease in the purchasing power of money.
(d) was true for all of the above.
An export industry is said to exhibit increasing returns to scale when
(a) a large-scale organization has significant competitive advantages over small-scale
activities.
(b) labor utilization increases by 50 percent but export output production increases by
only 20 percent.
(c) its small-scale business activity has significant comparative advantages over
large-scale productions.
(d) use of capital increases by 10 percent leads to an increase in export production by
10 percent.
A tariff is which type of tax?
(a) Progressive
(b) Regressive
(c) Proportional
(d) Neutral
In the years immediately following the Civil War (1861″1865), a “unique” pattern of
social and economic life formed in the South. It included:
(a) High productivity
(b) An increase in wealth among all groups
(c) Social advancement among former slaves and whites
(d) Racism
In the Free Banking Era (the period of no central bank),
(a) anyone could form a bank if they met the requirements.
(b) banks were required to offer free financial services.
(c) the federal government rescinded its tax on bank notes.
(d) states rescinded their taxes on bank notes.
During the late 1800s and early 1900s,
(a) American society clearly recognized the value of labor in the profit process.
(b) U.S. legislation and courts of law appeared hostile to the interests of organized
working employees.
(c) society, at large, generally favored the efforts of workers to combine into unions to
negotiate with employers.
(d) organized labor had a stable and respected place in politics.