The Rise of American Industry- American Economic History Research Proposal

The Rise of American Industry- American Economic History - Research proposal ExampleAlthough America has been blessed with abundant geological resources, the intensity of conversion of natural resources into manufactured commodities, which grew the most during 1880 to 1920, was the major reason that American industry could draw to this predominance. Economies of scale and capital intensive production was possible because of the access to new materials like aluminum and copper as well as larger markets through and through the transportation network (Chandler, 1992). This enabled the American industry to get a competitive advantage in the period prior to the First World War.During the inter-war years, 1929-41, the American saving witnessed the worst recession and unemployment situation as a result of demand crash, hence the period popularly known as the Great Depression. The economy find after the Second World War and the period between 1948 and 1973 was a boom time, with private n on-farm enterprises growing fast. Interestingly, even during the depression years, growth in substantial output was higher than the growth in real wages and real capital, that is total factor productivity (TFP) grew faster than in the post-war boom years. Some economists go for argued that this simultaneous existence of high labor productivity and unemployment stems from the fact that with decline in demand, private enterprises tended to lay off the unproductive labor. Hence, selective labor retentiveness and improved management practices enabled higher labor productivity. However, other economists have found that factors other than selective retention of labor resulted in the high inter-war productivity growth, which was the suitcase on which post-war economic revival happened in America. For example, quality of labor improved as Americans received better educational qualifications during the inter-war years, a level that was not achieved over again since the 1960s (Goldin, ci ted in Field, 2006). On