Economists have long maintained that a well-developed and functioning financial system is a vital prerequisite to economic growth. Countries with robust banking sectors and securities markets--that is, countries in which credit cards, loans, mortgages, and the ability to issue stocks and bonds are available to a broad swath of consumers and businesses--are more prosperous than countries that restrict such access to a favored elite. What is less clear is why some countries develop better financial systems than others. The essays in this volume employ the insights and techniques of political...

Economists have long maintained that a well-developed and functioning financial system is a vital prerequisite to economic growth. Countries with robust banking sectors and securities markets--that is, countries in which credit cards, loans, mortgages, and the ability to issue stocks and bonds are available to a broad swath of consumers and businesses--are more prosperous than countries that restrict such access to a favored elite. What is less clear is why some countries develop better financial systems than others. The essays in this volume employ the insights and techniques of political...

Historians and archaeologists normally assume that the economies of ancient Greece and Rome between about 1000 BC and AD 500 were distinct from those of Egypt and the Near East. However, very different kinds of evidence survive from each of these areas, and specialists have, as a result, developed very different methods of analysis for each region. This book marks the first time that historians and archaeologists of Egypt, the Near East, Greece, and Rome have come together with sociologists, political scientists, and economists, to ask whether the differences between accounts of these regions...

This innovative new book contributes simultaneously to two different disciplinary fields: comparative political economy and Mexican history. It does so by attempting to explain why Mexico--contrary to the predictions of several dominant theories of economic growth--enjoyed a comparatively high rate of economic growth and development under the highly authoritarian dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz (1876-1911). In conducting a detailed political analysis of Diaz's rule, Armando Razo introduces network analysis to the study of institutions and growth, and shows how dictators can maintain their power...

Focusing on the political culture forged by Rocky Mountain workers from the 1870s through the 1920s, this book shows how the unique working-class politics of the region led to remarkable successes in securing progressive labor legislation. These successes--especially in improving workers' hours, wages, and safety--in turn played a central role in transforming the nation's attitudes toward workers' rights. Examining political culture in the everyday lives of workers (from shop floors to union halls to recreation), the author uncovers a labor movement based as much on pragmatism as on ideology,...

Between Tyranny and Anarchy provides a unique comprehensive history and interpretation of efforts to establish democracies over two centuries in the major Latin American countries. Drake takes an unusual interdisciplinary approach, combining history and political science with an emphasis on political institutions. He argues that, without a thorough examination of the historical roots and causes of Latin American democracy, most general theories can not adequately explain its failures, successes, and forms. Latin America offers an extraordinary laboratory for the study of democratic...

In 1890, Argentina was a wealthy nation on the brink of industrialization. Industrial Development in a Frontier Economy examines Argentina's failure over the next forty years to develop an efficient manufacturing sector, even as countries in similar circumstances--Meiji Japan, Brazil, and Mexico--successfully modernized their economies. Yovanna Pineda conducts a pioneering microanalysis of 59 domestic corporations, spanning ten manufacturing sectors, to show that Argentina's macroeconomic conditions led domestic manufacturers to concentrate on survival at the expense of innovation and...

Until the last decades of the nineteenth century, Mexico faced the twin problems of chronic political instability and slow economic growth. During the period of the Porfirio Diaz dictatorship (1876-1911), however, a series of institutional reforms reignited growth and created rents that enabled the Diaz government to threaten its opponents with military force or to buy them off. These institutional reforms came out of distinctly political processes, which often had to be brokered among multiple groups of economic elites and regional political bosses. Therefore, they were often structured to...

This work addresses the development of congressional practices and institutions and ties the changes to key political and economic events. In connecting political and economic events with changes in Congress, the authors examine the political economy of the history of Congress. They draw upon history to offer insights about contemporary issues such as party polarization, filibuster reform, direct election of politicians, intercameral bargaining, and the role of committees in the political process. Through this approach the authors help us to understand how politics and economics interact to...

Measuring Up traces the high levels of poverty and inequality that Mexico faced in the mid-twentieth century. Using newly developed multidisciplinary techniques, the book provides a perspective on living standards in Mexico prior to the first measurement of income distribution in 1957. By offering an account of material living conditions and their repercussions on biological standards of living between 1850 and 1950, it sheds new light on the life of the marginalized during this period. Measuring Up shows that new methodologies allow us to examine the history of individuals who...