Louis P. Cain

Factor Biases and Technical Change in Manufacturing: The American System, 1850–1919

This paper examines the proposition that U.S. manufacturing experienced biased technical change during the period 1850–1919. Tests for bias, in Hicksian terms, are conducted using the translog cost dual. Redefined census data permit these tests to be made at the two-digit level of industry classification and with four inputs considered—labor, capital, materials, and a residual factor input. The tests demonstrate that labor-saving and capital-using biases existed, but material-using biases also were present. Furthermore, the patterns of bias varied considerably from industry to industry and often were of such a magnitude as to overpower ordinary substitution effects.

Public Policy Toward “The Greatest Trust in the World”

In the first of two articles, Professors Aduddell and Cain introduce the complex relations between a dynamic meatpacking industry and a government committed, in uncertain degree, to the philosophy of antitrust. From its earliest beginnings as an industry in the 1830s, meatpacking has experienced constantly changing parameters of technology, supply, demand, and public policy. Matters reached the first of several climaxes a few years after the new and naive Federal Trade Commission was established. Admittedly the dominant factor in a highly integrated meat industry, the largest companies were diversifying into non-meat food products, giving rise to the charge that they proposed to “monopolize” the entire food industry. The outcome was a consent decree in 1920 that, in confirming the large companies in their domination of meatpacking in return for their withdrawal from non-meat foods, revealed a government with a very weak case against an industry that it had made the cynosure of 120 million Americans. True to the familiar pattern of antitrust settlements, the dynamics of technology in transportation and marketing thereupon proceeded to render the decree meaningless. The second article, bringing the subject down to recent times, will appear in the Autumn issue.

The growing commercialism of zoos and aquariums

Although the mission of zoos and aquariums (species preservation, exhibition, education, and research) has not changed, the weights attached to their multiple goals and the means to accomplish them have. In particular, these institutions have undertaken costly programs to preserve endangered species. Through an examination of alternative revenue sources we demonstrate that institutions accredited by the American Zoo and Aquarium Association (AZA) have experienced no change in the structure of demand. Although more money could be raised through higher admission fees, these institutions have not exploited this alternative to full advantage, despite the Reagan-era tax rate reductions that resulted in fewer donations. Almost all the limited subsidies zoos and aquariums receive come from local governments; federal subsidies (through the Endangered Species Act) have been allocated to purchase critical habitat in the wild. Zoos and aquariums have turned increasingly to ancillary commercial activity such as food service and gift shops.

William Dean' Theory of Urban Growth: Chicago's Commerce and Industry, 1854–1871

William H. Dean, Jr. argued the development of a commercial agglomeration at any site is a function of three interrelated variables: trade routes, position, and nodality. Industrial agglomerations follow commercial ones. Deans theory is discussed and applied to Chicagos growth before the Great Fire of 1871. The initial development of Chicagos transportation infrastructure is described. Data for the balance of receipts and shipments of selected items and growth rates for receipts and shipments from 1854 to 1871 are presented.

To annex or not? A tale of two towns: Evanston and Hyde Park☆

Annexation of former suburban areas accounted for much of the central city growth in the late 19th century. On 29 June 1889, for example, elections in Chicago and several suburban areas resulted in the annexation of 120 square miles to Chicago. The city doubled in size in one day!’ Urban growth through annexation has now all but ceased in the older Northern and Eastern cities, but it continues in younger Southern and Western cities.* This essay centers upon Hyde Park, a suburb that annexed itself to Chicago, and Evanston, a suburb that retained its independence.3 Both included established residential areas and a major university. Both supplied a wide range of services, but their distribution was uneven in the Village of Hyde Park, where residents of the densely settled area north of 87th Street received all the services offered by the local government while residents who lived in the relatively undeveloped area south of 87th Street were not offered as many services. Many reasons, both economic and political, have been advanced for why suburban areas relinquished their autonomy. Some of these reasons

The demand for zoos and aquariums

We estimate a demand equation using cross-sectional data from accredited zoos and aquariums in the US supplied by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums augmented with data from federal government sources. Among the most important findings is that demand is price inelastic, particularly among the not-for-profit institutions. Also, the size of the institution matters. The institutions with the largest budgets draw the most visitors. We argue that, in spite of changes in income, population, leisure activities, and other variables that affect the quantity demanded, the structure of demand has been remarkably stable during more than three decades of significant supply-side change. Finally, using information from visitor surveys, we argue that the most common visitors are families with young children, a finding that has ramifications for these institutions� collection, education, and construction strategies.

Planning for Peace: The Surplus Property Act of 1944

The Surplus Property Act of 1944 established several social objectives for the disposal of war surplus. In particular, small business was to be benefited; concentration was to be reduced. Such objectives are better considered as part of the war mobilization rather than the peacetime reconversion. While suggesting that concentration was not reduced, the evidence also suggests that concentration is not an inevitable consequence of war. Social objectives can be incorporated into war mobilization, but their realization involves a substantially higher cost.

Snow in the cities : a history of America's urban response

Snowstorms in pedestrian towns, 1620-1800 sleighbells and steam whistles in the snow, 1800-1870 storm warnings, snow ploughs and blizzards, 1870-1890 from snow-ploughing to snow removal, 1890-1925 snow-fighting in motorized cities, 1925-1955 snow-fighting in a metropolitan era, 1955-1966 urban snow problems wickedly shared.

From Big Shoulders to Big Macs

Chicagos economy changed over the 20th century from one known for its physical prowess to one known for its mental prowess, from a manufacturing center to a service center. It remained the home of multinational corporations, but in many cases, their production was moved elsewhere. The meatpacking industry is representative of the Chicago economy at the start of the 20th century, whereas McDonalds is consistent with what it had become by the end of the century. It is shown that many of the elements of the McDonaldization hypothesis were present a century ago, particularly in the problems faced by the meatpacking industry.

A Century of Environmental Legislation

We find three intertwined ambitions that drove federal legislation over wildlife and biodiversity at the beginning of the 20th Century: establishment of multiple-use federal lands, the economic development of natural resources, and the maintenance of option values. We examine this federal intervention in natural resource use by analyzing roll-call votes over the past century. These votes involved decisions regarding public land that reallocated the returns to users by changing the asset’s physical character or its usage rights. We suggest that long term consequences affecting current resource allocations arose from disparities between broadly dispersed benefits and locally concentrated socio-economic and geo-physical (spatial) costs. We show that a primary intent of public land management has become to preserve multiple-use option values and identify important factors in computing those option values. We do this by demonstrating how the willingness to forego current benefits for future ones depends on the community’s resource endowments. These endowments are defined not only in terms of users’ current wealth accumulation but also from their expected ability to extract utility from natural resources over time.