Samuel K. Allen

A Patchwork Safety Net: A Survey Of Cliometric Studies Of Income Maintenance Programs In The United States In The First Half Of The Twentieth Century

Social welfare programs in the United States are designed to serve as safety nets for people in hard times, in contrast with the universal approach found in many other developed western nations. In a survey of Cliometric studies of social welfare programs in the U.S., we examine the variation in the safety net in the U.S. across states in the 20th century, the determinants of the variation, and its impact on socioeconomic outcomes. The U.S. has always displayed substantial variation in the extent of the safety net because the features of most public social welfare programs are and were determined by local and state governments, even after the federal government became involved. Differences across states persist strongly for typically a decade, although the persistence weakens with time, and there are some periods when federal intervention led to a re-ordering. The rankings of state benefits differs from program to program, and economic and political factors have different weights in determining benefit levels in panel data estimation of their effects. Variation in benefits across programs during the early 1900s had significant impact on labor markets, economic activity, family formation, death rates, and crime.

Press Pass: Payoffs to Media Exposure Among National Football League (NFL) Wide Receivers

The authors examine Wide Receivers drafted into the National Football League (NFL) to test competing superstar theories related to both talent and popularity. The authors use player performance variables and media exposure in the popular press prior to the draft to explore whether talent and popularity can explain differences in salaries and NFL draft order. The authors find evidence of superstar effects stemming from player popularity but not performance even after controlling for measured physical attributes. The authors also find that tangible measures of player quality are valuable signals. Consistent with expectations, faster and more accomplished college receivers are drafted earlier and earn more.

Civilization and the Evolution of Short Sighted Agents

We model an assurance game played within a population with two types of individuals -- short-sighted and foresighted. Foresighted people have a lower discount rate than short sighted people. These phenotypes interact with each other. We define the persistent interaction of foresighted people with other foresighted people as a critical element of civilization while the interaction of short sighted people with other short sighted people as critical to the failure of civilization. We show that whether the short sighted phenotype will be an evolutionary stable strategy (and thus lead to the collapse of civilization) depends on the initial proportion of short sighted people relative to people with foresight as well as their relative discount rates. Further we explore some comparative static results that connect the probability of the game continuing and the relative size of the two discount rates to the likelihood that civilization will collapse.

Measuring the intensity of state labor regulation during the Progressive Era

Contents, Preface, Acknowledgements, 1. Editors Introduction: The Good of Counting, Joshua L. Rosenbloom, 2. An Economic History of Bastardy in England and Wales, John Ermisch, 3. Epidemics, Demonstration Effects, and Municipal Investment in Sanitation Capital, Louis P. Cain and Elyce J. Rotella, 4. Profitability, Firm Size and Business Organization in Nineteenth Century U.S. Manufacturing, Jeremy Atack and Fred Bateman, 5. Railroads and Local Economic Development: The United States in the 1850s, Michael R. Haines and Robert A. Margo, 6. Did Refrigeration Kill the Hog-Corn Cycle?, Lee A. Craig and Matthew T. Holt, 7. Measuring the Intensity of State Labor Regulation During the Progressive Era, Rebecca Holmes, Price Fishback and Samuel Allen, 8. Reexamining the Distribution of Wealth in 1870, Joshua L. Rosenbloom and Gregory W. Stutes

Lifting the curse of dimensionality: Measures of the states' labor legislation climate in the United States during the progressive era

Prior to the 1930s state governments determined a large portion of the labor policies in America, making rules for collective action, arbitrating labor disputes, and setting the terms of employment. Contemporaries and labor historians have long grappled with effective ways to summarize the labor regulatory climate. To help contemporary workers and businesses understand state labor regulations, the US Commissioner of Labor (‘Labor Laws’, Second Special Report; ‘Labor Laws’, Tenth Special Report; ‘Labor Laws’, Twenty-second Annual Report) and later the Bureau of Labor Statistics (‘Labor Laws’, Bulletins 148 and 370) published texts of state labor statutes at irregular intervals. In the 1930s John R. Commons and his associates, in particular Elizabeth Brandeis, summarized the history of the policies in their History of Labor in the United States. The volumes describe a great diversity and breadth in labor regulations that is difficult to comprehend. Our goal has been to use this information to develop quantitative measures of the changing labor regulatory climate in the various states of the United States during the progressive era that complement the detailed information in those volumes. Using the volumes above and state statute volumes, Rebecca Holmes (‘Impact of State Labor Regulations’ and dissertation summary) accumulated an annual database identifying the presence of 135 different labor laws for the period 1900 to 1925. While pursuing other projects, we have added information on the total number of pages devoted to all labor laws in the states, and the appropriations by state legislatures for spending on the administration and enforcement of their labor laws. Anyone using these data to develop a broad picture of the regulatory climate faces the curse of dimensionality. As part of the project, we seek to lift the curse by developing a series of measures of the regulatory climate that allow for summary comparisons across both states and time. The summary measures are meant to provide context for the specific legal changes that took place in the early 1900s in the same way that a literature survey provides background for specific studies. We develop several measures and demonstrate their robustness to different approaches toward measurement. The measures show the expansion of labor regulation both within and across states over the course of the progressive era. We conclude with preliminary analysis of political and labor market correlates that influenced the geographic variation in the measures over time.