History Matters
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History Matters
Essays on Economic Growth, Technology, and Demographic Change

Edited by Timothy W. Guinnane, William A. Sundstrom, and Warren C. Whatley

Stanford University Press, 528 pages, 29 tables, 28 illustrations, 2004

Preface

The essays collected in this volume were, with two exceptions, presented at a conference in honor of Professor Paul A. David, held at Stanford University on June 2-3, 2000. The conference was sponsored by the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), which provided generous financial and institutional support. Additional financial support from the Social Science History Institute (SSHI) at Stanford University and the Breetwor Fellowship at Santa Clara University is also gratefully acknowledged.

The editors would like to thank a number of individuals who helped make the conference a success, including Deborah Carvalho, Stephen Haber, Lawrence J. Lau, John Pencavel, John Shoven, and the numerous session chairs and discussants. We are particularly indebted to Dafna Baldwin for her organizational skills and unfailing attention to detail. We also thank Susan B. Carter for her role in initiating plans for the conference and making first contacts with participants and contributors.

Two individuals must be named as having been especially crucial to the success of the conference and the subsequent volume. Gavin Wright served as adviser to the organizers and liaison to Stanford University before, during, and after the conference. And the late Moses Abramovitz offered early encouragement in the planning process as well as an insightful and entertaining address to the conference on the subject of his long collaboration with Paul David. The text of Professor Abramovitz's remarks can be found at the SIEPR web site, http://siepr.stanford.edu/conferences/Abramovitz.pdf.

We are grateful to our editors at Stanford University Press, Judith Hibbard, the late Kenneth MacLeod, Janet Mowery, Norris Pope, and Kate Wahl, for bringing this volume to fruition.

Finally, we are delighted to dedicate this volume to Paul A. David, who has been a personal and an intellectual inspiration to each of the contributors.

Table of Contents

Editors’ Introduction, by Timothy W. Guinnane, William A. Sundstrom, and Warren Whatley

Part I. Why History Matters: Path Dependence and Economic Thought

  1. Path Dependence and Competitive Equilibrium, by Kenneth J. Arrow
  2. Path Dependence and Reswitching in a Model of Multi-Technology Adoption, by Paul Stoneman
  3. Path Dependence, Network Form, and Technological Change, by Douglas J. Puffert
  4. The Tension between Strong History and Strong Economics, by Melvin W. Reder

Part II. Path Dependence in Practice

  1. Financial History and the Long Reach of the Second Thirty-Years’ War, by Charles W. Calomiris
  2. Path Dependence in Action: The Adoption and Persistence of the Korean Model of Economic Development, by Phillip Wonhyuk Lim
  3. Continuing Confusion: Entry Prices in Telecommunications, by Peter Temin
  4. After the War Boom: Reconversion on the Pacific Coast, 1943-1949, by Paul W. Rhode
  5. Standardization, Diversity, and Learning in China’s Nuclear Power Program, by Geoffrey Rothwell

Part III. Context Matters: The Influence of Culture, Geography, and Political Institutions on Economies and Policies

  1. Incentives, Information, and Welfare: England’s New Poor Law and the Workhouse Test, by Timothy Besley, Stephen Coate, and Timothy W. Guinnane
  2. Family Matters: The Life-Cycle Transition and the Antebellum American Fertility Decline, by Susan B. Carter, Roger L. Ransom, and Richard Sutch
  3. Building "Universal Service" in the Early Bell System: The Coevolution of Regional Urban Systems and Long-Distance Telephone Networks, by David F. Weiman
  4. International Competition for Technology Investments: Does National Ownership Matter?, by Trond E. Olsen

Part IV. Evidence Matters: Measuring Historical Economic Growth and Demographic Change

  1. Conjectural Estimates of Economic Growth in the Lower South, 1720 to 1800, by Peter C. Mancall, Joshua L. Rosenbloom, and Thomas Weiss
  2. The Value-Added Approach to the Measurement of Economic Growth, by Mark Thomas and Charles Feinstein
  3. A User’s Guide to the Joys and Pitfulls of Cohort Parity Analysis, by Warren C. Sanderson
  4. Stochastic Dynamic Optimization Models with Random Effects in Parameters: An Application to the Age at Marriage and Life-Cycle Fertility Control in France Under the Old Regime, by Thomas A. Mroz and David R. Weir