Antebellum Manufacturing Returns, Risks, and Patterns of Specialization

At the middle of the nineteenth century returns to investment in manufacturing exceeded those to investment in agriculture. This difference was significantly greater in the South. The South also had the lowest value of manufactures per capita, the smallest manufacturing facilities, and the greatest risk premia of all the regions of the United States. Data suggest that this was not always the case. The eighteenth-century South had not lagged behind the North, if anything, it had been the industrialized region. The relative success of the South in the eighteenth century weakens traditional explanations of Southern manufacturing backwardness in the nineteenth.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Economics

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

1988

Author dc:creator

• Quade, Robert Clyde

Contributors dc:contributor

• Ulen, Thomas S.

• Economics, History

Identifier

(UMI)AAI8815409

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/70796