During the period in which the Navigation Acts guided colonial trade, international
trade was safe and many countries fairly engaged in commercial trade.
The lag in the political rights of women can be positively associated with the lag in
female wages and skill acquisition according to Goldin (1990).
Under Samuel Gompers, the highly successful American Federation of Labor (AFL)
restricted its membership to craftsmen, required members to pay high dues and
garnered votes and campaign contributions for politicians supporting the labor
movement.
The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union (1781) failed because they made
governmental controls too restrictive and federal taxes too high.
As more people entered the agricultural sector between 1865 and 1913, agricultural
efficiency (i.e., output per man hour) fell.
The struggles and controversies over federal and state powers led to the demise of both
the First and Second Bank of the United States.
A fundamental criticism of Time on the Cross is that economics cannot be used to
simply compare the welfare of the slaves to their free, white counterparts.
The stock market collapse of 1929 might have been averted had large corporations
maintained their participation in the market for securities loans in 1925″1929.
Stampp (1976) finds evidence to suggest that the Southern slave owners were operating
at losses, not profits.
By 1914 the American economy had transformed into an agricultural giant.
During the antebellum period, rapid economic growth was accompanied by significant
changes in public economics and policy-making.
The value of labor is in skill, effort and knowledge.
The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, like any tariff act, increased the price of the
taxed imported goods as well as the domestic price of U.S. goods and services produced
in the industries favored by the tariff. Consequently, any tariff negatively impacts U.S.
consumers by forcing them to pay higher prices.
The sale of western land after 1790 was steady and strong.
The decline of output of other domestic auto producers besides Ford, General Motors
and Chrysler occurred in the presence, even before 1970, of rising sales of imported
cars in the U.S. market.
Unlike the 1920″21 episode, 1929″30 farm prices stood up fairly well when other prices
fell.
The reforms, acts and programs that emerged during the New Deal were dissolved
quickly at the end of the Great Depression. On this front, the New Deal command
economy was similar to the World War I command economy.
Between the end of the Civil War and the beginning of World War I, the U.S. economy
was not able to effectively absorb the millions of immigrants it received.
Unions fight primarily for higher wages and better benefits.
The hope of “Reaganomics”that ending inflation will stimulate economic growthis
supported by the experience of 1945″49.
The organized groups of people who favor government intervention do so at the
expense of other groups because even government resources are limited.
High differentials in interest rates suggest that the financial markets of New England,
the Middle Atlantic and the South were not integrated with those of New York City.
The object of U.S. technological choices, according to Rosenberg (1963), was to
conserve scarce productive factors and exploit plentiful ones.
The roots of the Civil War (1861″1865) can be traced to the colonial period of U.S.
history. The ratification of the 10th amendment of the U.S. Constitution brings all issues
connected to the Civil War to an end.
The data show that the American national income grew fast enougheven when
immigration rates are taken into accountto produce rising income per capita between
1860 and 1910.
Despite the huge increase in American exports of manufactures and the importation of
primarily luxury goods in 1880″1910, the American market for American products was
still largely self-sufficient.
Mercantilism followed feudalism. Unlike feudalism, mercantilism did not support any
form of a strong central government or system of nation states.
The McKinley Tariff of 1890 marked the beginning of the American move toward free
trade.
Financial intermediation supports economic growth and development by bringing
together numerous savers and investors in growing and increasingly complex markets.
Contrary to many researchers’ views, Hurst (1969) claims the government needed
private investors to fund internal improvements.
Income distribution moved toward greater inequality in the 1920s after World War I
(1914″18) had witnessed a movement toward greater equality.
According to Alfred Chandler (1977), big business could be justified, at least in part, by
the ability of large scale enterprises to take advantage of scale economies.
William J. Clinton (1993″2001) was the first U.S. president since the Great Depression
to increase taxes to try to reduce the federal budget deficit.
According to the Quantity Theory of Money (Chapter 3), the increase in the money
supply from $39.7 billion in 1940 to $99.2 billion in 1945 should have fueled strong
inflation. However, it did not because
(a) the World War II (1941″45) (WWII) economy was operating below full
employment levels of production.
(b) the WWII economy was operating at full employment levels of production.
(c) the WWII economy was operating above full employment levels of production.
(d) price controls prevented the surge in prices across the economy.
Why does the history of the U.S. matter?
(a) Historical knowledge helps us understand the forces that shaped the current
economy.
(b) The lessons of the past help us avoid future mistakes.
(c) Historical knowledge helps us identify who or what is most likely to fuel
future economic prosperity.
(d) All of the above.
The “police power” of government to control business
(a) was exercised during the colonial period but lapsed when the Constitution was
written.
(b) was exercised during the colonial period and carried over to the new nation; it still
exists today.
(c) was not widely exercised during the colonial period but assumed greater importance
in the new nation.
(d) was important in England but was never important in the Americas, either before or
after the Revolution.
The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 was not well understood because
(a) skilled lawyers were not involved in its creation.
(b) judges were mainly political hacks and therefore were unable to follow the logic of
the Act.
(c) vested interests had been allowed too much influence in drafting the legislation.
(d) the purpose of the legislation was not sufficiently clear when it was drafted.
The largest colony in 1770 in both population and claims on hinterlands was
(a) Massachusetts
(b) Pennsylvania
(c) Virginia
(d) New York
With regard to the Constitution and its interpretation,
(a) the powers reserved for the states included the police powerslocal rules, laws and
ordinances, including licensing, inspection and the regulation of local business
activities.
(b) the “common law of England” was in effect, claimed as the right of all Americans
and still enforced by England.
(c) England was consulted in cases of ambiguity over interpretation of the common law
policy.
(d) none of the above are true.
The Constitution helped establish a secure and well-defined system of property rights
and rights of persons because it did which of the following?
(a) It established that people could be deprived of property without due process of law.
(b) It loosely defined which contracts would be enforced.
(c) It permitted bankruptcy without just cause and required government stamp of
approval.
(d) It let market forces, not government, set prices on the sale of land among private
citizens.
What was the crucial factor permitting cotton textile production to take off in New
England between 1790 and 1815?
(a) The imposition of high tariff rates
(b) A lowering of import tariffs by Britain
(c) The blocking of trade with England through the Embargo and the War of 1812
(d) A relaxation of regulations restricting exports of machinery by Britain
The distribution of income and wealth in colonial America was
(a) relatively equal to that of modern America.
(b) relatively unequal to that of modern America.
(c) unequal in roughly the same degree as that in modern America.
(d) unequal, but the data are not good enough to allow a comparison with modern
America.
Profitability in cotton farming depended on which of the following factors?
(a) Physical crop yields
(b) World and domestic cotton prices
(c) Subsistence farming during periods of low cotton prices
(d) All of the above
Which of the following was NOT a major claim of Fogel and Engerman (1974) in their
work on slavery?
(a) Slavery was profitable for Southerners.
(b) Slavery slowed the mechanization of the plantations.
(c) Slaves were treated fairly well.
(d) Slavery was efficient.
Hughes and Cain (2011) suggest that an event or series of events occurring in 1763
doomed British policy. What happened?
(a) A series of oppressive taxes
(b) A tightening and more rigorous enforcement of the Navigation Acts
(c) A proclamation which limited trans-Appalachian settlement to lands once granted to
colonists by crown approval
(d) An act that gave the Quebec province all the land west of the Ohio River
The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 and the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938
forced employers to
(a) negotiate with unionized labor.
(b) keep hours at a minimum.
(c) pay maximum wages.
(d) do all of the above.
According to Davis (1963), industrial firms need capital to expand, grow and develop.
They will seek the most efficient means to finance this capital. In the U.S. during its
period of industrialization, industrialists raised the resources needed to invest in capital
accumulation by
(a) tapping into the lending power of giant commercial banks.
(b) utilizing the lending power of a large number of small banks.
(c) merging.
(d) engaging in all of the above.
Which of the following was not claimed in the book Time on the Cross, by Fogel
and Engerman (1974)?
(a) Slavery was growing stronger economically before the Civil War.
(b) Slave agriculture in the South was more productive than was family farming in the
North.
(c) Slave breeding and sexual exploitation by slave owners were normal aspects of the
slave system.
(d) Slave field hands were harder working and more efficient than were white
agricultural workers.
From the Civil War until 1914, what change(s) occurred in U.S. policies regarding
tariffs?
(a) Tariff rates were generally higher and customs receipts were higher than before
the Civil War.
(b) As the momentum of the westward movement increased, increased revenues from
land sales allowed Congress to return tariff rates to their pre-Civil War levels.
(c) Customs revenues increased because of economic growth and the lack of important
changes in tariff policy.
(d) All of the above
Economic developments after the Civil War (1861″1865) in the South include all of the
following except
(a) A decline in cotton prices with the result that poverty associated with cotton became
a fixed feature of the South
(b) The relatively widespread land ownership among the freed slaves
(c) The widespread adoption of the sharecropping system
(d) The widespread debt peonage for the freed slaves
On the farm, which of the following people had the highest labor value?
(a) A woman
(b) A man
(c) A child
(d) A grandparent
The common ownership of natural resources frequently leads to
(a) an efficient resource allocation.
(b) an even distribution of resources.
(c) an uneven distribution of resources.
(d) a productive use of resources.
Cities included all of the following economies of scale except
(a) Transportation
(b) Sanitation
(c) Crime
(d) Education
The turnpikes built in the early 1800s were
(a) intercity toll roads.
(b) highly profitable enterprises.
(c) financed entirely by private enterprise.
(d) regulated by the federal government.
Under the new Constitution in 1789, the states gained the sovereign power to
(a) levy taxes.
(b) power and issue money.
(c) “regulate” the value of money.
(d) create corporations by special franchise.
The stock market boom of the 1920s occurred in part because the demand for stocks
increased. The source of this demand increase originated from whom?
(a) Ordinary workers who experienced rising wages and now had incentive to invest in
the stock market, thus driving up stock prices.
(b) The people in the upper income strata; they received a high percentage of the
increase in realized income during the 1920s and invested much of it in the stock
market.
(c) Farmers who, finding agriculture increasingly unprofitable, began investing in the
stock market rather than in farm land and equipment.
(d) Foreign investors who were optimistic about America’s future and accordingly
invested in American stocks.
From 1860 to 1910, U.S. statistical and qualitative evidence suggests that
(a) many migrants came during the upswings in the U.S. business cycle.
(b) the employment experiences and economic conditions of family and friends in the
U.S. influenced the decisions of prospective immigrants.
(c) economic desperation, social immobility and restricted labor opportunities
“pushed” immigrants out of their homelands and into the U.S.
(d) all of the above are true.
Taxes can have different effects on different income groups. Which type of tax takes a
larger percentage of income from high-income groups than from low-income groups?
(a) Progressive
(b) Regressive
(c) Proportional
(d) Flat
(e) Protective
Land ownership or land tenure in colonial America was primarily acquired by settlers
through
(a) purchase and the legal transfer of deeds from Native Americans.
(b) the King granting property to favored individuals in feudal-like fashions.
(c) ‘squatting” or freely settling and cultivating the land to gain private ownership over
land.
(d) purchase or otherwise legal transfer of deeds from colonial officials who received
their rights to the land from the king of England.
Between 1860 and 1910, the labor force in agriculture
(a) dwindled to historic lows.
(b) decreased at a slow steady pace.
(c) increased but not at the same rate as the total labor force.
(d) stayed the same.
Business cycles can be described best as
(a) being pervasive during the antebellum period but their effects were isolated to the
private sector.
(b) being pervasive during the antebellum period but their effects were isolated to the
public sector.
(c) being pervasive during the antebellum period and their effects were felt both in the
private and public sectors.
(d) uncommon during the antebellum period but their effects were felt significantly
when present.
The South’s post-Civil War backwardness was due to all of the following except
(a) extensive wartime destruction of life and property.
(b) the fiscal disaster of the Confederacy, whereby nine tenths of the state banks in the
South vanished.
(c) the price of cotton was increasing, as it had prior to the Civil War, thus keeping
cotton profitable and discouraging investors in the South from developing a modern
manufacturing system.
(d) the failure of the sharecropping system to provide incentives for innovation and
progress in agriculture.
An economy that grows in world interdependence experiences
(a) growing trade on the basis of comparative advantage.
(b) more vulnerability to the business cycles of trading partners.
(c) wealth accumulation.
(d) all of the above.
Economic theory predicts that
(a) market forces impose stiff penalties on profits whenever enterprises discriminate
against individuals on any basis other than productivity.
(b) government intervention is required to combat discrimination.
(c) market mechanisms and government interventions are weak in addressing issues of
discrimination. However, government is relatively stronger.
(d) discrimination is a necessary part of life private and public life.