Showing papers in "The Journal of Economic History in 2002"
TL;DR: This article introduced a concept of real, as opposed to nominal, inequality of income or wealth, which suggests some historical reinterpretations, buttressed by a closer look at consumption by the rich.
Abstract: Introducing a concept of real, as opposed to nominal, inequality of income or wealth suggests some historical reinterpretations, buttressed by a closer look at consumption by the rich. The purchasing powers of different income classes depend on how relative prices move. Relative prices affected real inequality more strongly in earlier centuries than in the twentieth. Between 1500 and about 1800, staple food and fuels became dearer, while luxury goods, especially servants, became cheaper, greatly widening the inequality of lifestyles. Peace, industrialization, and globalization reversed this inegalitarian price effect in the nineteenth century, at least for England.
236 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the long-term trends in real wages of skilled and unskilled construction workers in Istanbul and other Ottoman cities in southeastern Europe and the Middle East, from the second half of the fifteenth century until World War I, were investigated.
Abstract: Utilizing a large volume of archival documents, this study establishes for the first time the long-term trends in real wages of skilled and unskilled construction workers in Istanbul and other Ottoman cities in southeastern Europe and the Middle East, from the second half of the fifteenth century until World War I. A detailed consumer price index and nominal wage indices are constructed for the city of Istanbul for this purpose. These price and wage series are then inserted into a larger framework of price and wage trends in European cities during the same period.
189 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the pre-1940 wage-rental ratios, land-labor ratios, terms of trade, and other variables for nine countries in the periphery, and joins them to data previously collected for the greater Atlantic economy.
Abstract: This article documents pre-1940 wage–rental ratios, land–labor ratios, the terms of trade, and other variables for nine countries in the periphery, and joins them to data previously collected for the greater Atlantic economy. Commodity-price convergence is found to have been stronger in the preindustrial Third World than in the industrializing Atlantic economy. A previously unnoticed Third World convergence in wage–rental ratios is also documented. It appears that relative factor-price convergence took place, even though average living standards diverged dramatically between center and periphery.
163 citations
TL;DR: The United States overtook Britain in comparative aggregate productivity levels primarily as a result of trends in services rather than trends in industry as mentioned in this paper, which occurred during the transition from customized, low-volume, high-margin business organized on the basis of networks to standardized, highvolume, lowmargin business with hierarchical management from the 1870s.
Abstract: The United States overtook Britain in comparative aggregate productivity levels primarily as a result of trends in services rather than trends in industry. This occurred during the transition from customized, low-volume, high-margin business organized on the basis of networks to standardized, high-volume, low-margin business with hierarchical management from the 1870s. This transformation from the counting house to the modern office was dependent on technologies that improved communications and information processing. The technologies were slower to diffuse in Britain as a result of lower levels of education and stronger labor-force resistance to intensification.
138 citations
TL;DR: The most successful economies of modern, and perhaps earlier, economic history appear to have had "financial revolutions" that created innovative financial systems before they became leading economies as mentioned in this paper, which suggests that good financial systems may have played a causal role in economic modernization.
Abstract: The most successful economies of modern, and perhaps earlier, economic history appear to have had “financial revolutions” that created innovative financial systems before they became leading economies. This suggests that good financial systems may have played a causal role in economic modernization. I identify the key institutional components of such financial systems. Using the United States and Japan as examples, I discuss how two financial revolutions occurred. Effective leadership on the part of strong-willed individuals was crucial in each case.
134 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated the causes of Europe's overseas trade boom between 1500 and 1800 and explored its causes, concluding that it must have been caused by some combination of European import demand and foreign export supply.
Abstract: between 1500 and 1800 and explores its causes. There was no commodity-price convergence between continents, suggesting that declining trade barriers were not the cause of the boom. Thus, it must have been caused by some combination of European import demand and foreign export supply. The behavior of the relative price of foreign importables in European cities should tell us which mattered most and when: we provide the evidence and offer a model which is used to decompose the sources of Europe's overseas trade boom.
109 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present new annual price indices of equities traded on British exchanges for the period 1870-1913, as a replacement for Smith and Horne's widely used index.
Abstract: This article presents new annual price indices of equities traded on British exchanges for the period 1870–1913, as a replacement for Smith and Horne's widely used index. The data set contains 40,677 observations on 3,103 securities issued by 2,740 companies, providing substantially broader coverage of the market: from 520 to 1,150 issues per year, compared with Smith and Horne's 25 to 77 securities. In addition, the data set contains information on shares outstanding, par values, and dividends, allowing the construction of weighted and unweighted return indices and price–dividend ratios. The new database suggests an agenda for further research.
108 citations
TL;DR: The authors showed that U.S. wheat production witnessed wholesale changes in varieties and cultural practices during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which contributed roughly half of labor-productivity growth between 1839 and 1909.
Abstract: Standard treatments of U.S. agriculture assert that, before the 1930s, productivity growth was almost exclusively the result of mechanization rather than biological innovations. This article shows that U.S. wheat production witnessed wholesale changes in varieties and cultural practices during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Without these changes, vast expanses of the wheat belt could not have sustained commercial production and yields everywhere would have plummeted due to the increasing severity of insects, diseases, and weeds. Revised estimates of Parker and Klein’s productivity calculations indicate that biological innovations contributed roughly half of labor-productivity growth between 1839 and 1909.
87 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors reconstruct sectoral unemployment rates based on union records and supplement this with (crude) estimates for certain other sectors based on proxies for employment, but the index still excludes agriculture and services.
Abstract: Existing estimates of the annual unemployment rate from 1870 to 1913 were constructed by the Board of Trade, initially in 1888, and updated thereafter. This is still the series which is widely used and cited. It is based on records of the number unemployed in various trade unions and it has a number of well known flaws. The index is weighted by membership of reporting unions and is heavily skewed towards engineering and the metal trades. Some important sectors are largely omitted. We reconstruct sectoral unemployment rates based on union records and supplement this with (crude) estimates for certain other sectors based on proxies for employment. These are weighted according to labour force shares but the index still excludes agriculture and services. The basic cyclical pattern is preserved but the new series has a higher mean and a lower standard deviation than the Board of Trade index. The wide swings in unemployment during the 1870s are confirmed but the amplitude of fluctuations in the 1880s and 1890s is smaller in the new index than in the old. More tentatively, unemployment increases over time in the new index relative to the old.
78 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors address two related questions: 1) To what extent did cities and towns provide African Americans adequate water and sewer services during the era of Jim Crow (1880-1925), and 2) Whatmotivated local governments to allow African Americans access to water and sanitary services?
Abstract: This article addresses two related questions. To what extent did cities and towns provide African Americans adequate water and sewer services during the era of Jim Crow (1880-1925)? Whatmotivated local governments to allowAfrican Americans access to water and sewerage services? In light of the treatment African Americans received from state and local governments in areas such as education and police protection, it seems odd that blacks would have received any water and sewer service. Two explanations considered focus on fear of epidemic disease, and variation in the extent of residential segregation over time and across cities. The institutions and cultural norms that defined Jim Crow were pervasive, and there is no doubt that they extended, in some degree, to the provision of local water and sewer services as well. What remain unclear are the precise nature and extent of such discrimination, and the sources of variation in discrimination observed across cities.' Some writers argue that black and poor white neighborhoods received water and sewer service a half century or more after affluent white neighborhoods.2 One historian suggests black neighborhoods in Atlanta may have never received
68 citations
TL;DR: Average rents, constant-quality rents, and housing quality from 1550 to 1909 are estimated to explain why, despite rising real wages, housing quality appears to have declined from 1760 to 1860.
Abstract: Housing was a major item of English consumer expenditure. Yet little is known of its average quality or rental cost. I estimate average rents, constant-quality rents, and housing quality from 1550 to 1909. Constant-quality rents rose substantially relative to other costs of living during the Industrial Revolution. This probably explains why, despite rising real wages, housing quality appears to have declined from 1760 to 1860. There were, however, substantial quality gains in the eighteenth century prior to the Industrial Revolution. The implications of these new series for measurement of growth during the Industrial Revolution are briefly explored.
TL;DR: The authors analyzed unexplored information from the U.S. government documents and contemporary newspapers to take a fresh look at the role of domestic factors in the Panic of 1837 and found that a series of underappreciated interbank transfers of government balances ordered in the year leading up to the crisis combined with a policy-induced increase in the demand for coin in the Western states to drain the largest New York City banks of their specie reserves and render the panic inevitable.
Abstract: The Panic of 1837 stands among the most severe banking crises in U.S. history. It is thus not surprising that a number of hypotheses have over time emerged to disentangle its “true” causes from a host of domestic and international factors that came into play as the crisis approached. In this paper, I analyze unexplored information from the U.S. government documents and contemporary newspapers to take a fresh look at the role of domestic factors. These sources point to an explanation that places neither the official distribution of the federal surplus to the states in the Spring of 1837 nor an international shock at the center. Rather, a series of underappreciated interbank transfers of government balances ordered in the year leading up to the crisis combined with a policy-induced increase in the demand for coin in the Western states to drain the largest New York City banks of their specie reserves and render the panic inevitable.
TL;DR: This work studies two massive famines that struck France between 1693 and 1710, killing over two million people; it concludes that markets in fact helped alleviate these crises, albeit modestly.
Abstract: How—and how well—do food markets function in famine conditions? The controversy surrounding this question may benefit from historical perspective. Here we study two massive famines that struck France between 1693 and 1710, killing over two million people. In both cases the impact of harvest failure was exacerbated by wartime demands on the food supply; we ask whether the crises were exacerbated yet further by a failure of markets to function as they did in normal times. The evidence, we conclude, is most consistent with the view that markets in fact helped alleviate these crises, albeit modestly.Aujourd'hui ces matieres paraissent d'une telle aridite qu'elles provoquent le vide, meme au sein du parlement, si par hasard on les y discute…On ne voit plus des ecarts de prix comparables a ceux des grandes annees de famine de la fin du regne de Louis XIV: 1693 et 1709.Germain Martin (French historian) in 1908[Today these issues seem so stupifyingly dull that they produce an empty house, even in parliament, if by chance they are discussed there…. One no longer sees gaps in prices comparable to those of the years of famine at the end of the reign of Louis XIV, in 1693 and 1709.] Martin, “Famines,” p. 150.
TL;DR: In the early 1840s, promissory notes accounted for more than half of the total credit market, and almost four times the value of credit channeled through the banking system as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: This study estimates the size of the so-called "informal," or unintermediated, credit market in one Swedish city through a period of economic transformation. In the early 1840s promissory notes accounted for more than half of the total credit market, and almost four times the value of credit channeled through the banking system. Even in the 1870s, the promissory-note market was twice the size of the loan volume of the banking system. By 1905 bank-based credit had finally surpassed the informal variety; but even then, outstanding promissory notes were almost three-fifths as great as total bank credits to noncorporate borrowers. It is well known that the fundamental shift from agriculture to industry during the nineteenth century was accompanied by a transformation of the financial sector that was at least as revolutionary. For most of the past 50 years, however, research in economic history has been sharply focused on the new factory industries and their economic and social effects. The explosive development of financial markets during the 1980s and 1990s has once again directed the interest of historians to the financial sector and its role in the growth process. It can be argued that the emergence of industrial societies during the nineteenth century was actually the result of commercialization and monetization, as well as of new forms of savings, lending, and financial intermediation. These were necessary conditions for the divisions of labor and economies of scale that are at the heart of modem economic growth. Sweden's transition to a modem industrial society was a lengthy process, one punctuated by three major booms. The booms of the 1850s, the 1870s, and the two decades preceding World War I not only increased Sweden's GDP and its investment ratio, they also had a profound impact on the political system and on incentive structures. Two closely linked developments
TL;DR: In this article, the role of moral hazard in increasing exante asset risk is explored using examination data from a sample of Texas state-chartered banks over the period 1919-1926.
Abstract: Using recently collected examination data from a sample of Texas state-chartered banks over the period 1919–1926, the role of moral hazard in increasing ex-ante asset risk is explored. Analyzing individual bank-level data, we find that the existence of deposit insurance for state-chartered banks increased their likelihood of failure. Increases in loan concentrations followed declines in capitalization at insured state banks. However, we find no statistically significant relationship between loan concentrations and capitalization at uninsured national banks or at state banks before the introduction of deposit insurance. These results show a moral-hazard effect at work.
TL;DR: In the post-Second World War period, the floor fell out of the market for films in the United States as mentioned in this paper, but the hit end of the movie market sustained itself.
Abstract: In the post–Second World War period the floor fell out of the market for films in the United States. However, while the average revenue of films fell, the "hit" end of the market sustained itself. The growing inequality in the distribution of revenues meant that the risks associated with high-budget productions could no longer be balanced against the steady earnings of medium-budget films. During the 1950s the "majors" all became distributor–financiers as they reduced their exposure to the risks associated with film production. In doing this they retained their dominant position in the industry.
TL;DR: In this article, the terms of trade, money supply, labor market, and money and credit markets are linked to explore a puzzle in Malayan economic history: why, despite rapid growth and high per capita income, did pre-World War II Malaya industrialize so little?
Abstract: This article links the terms of trade, money supply, labor market, and money and credit markets to explore a puzzle in Malayan economic history: why, despite rapid growth and high per capita income, did pre–World War II Malaya industrialize so little? A range of data is drawn together to show how for Malayan manufacturers economic boom was accompanied by precipitate deterioration in the real exchange rate, while in a slump credit contracted sharply and with it the size of the Malayan market for manufactures. Analysis of Malayan experience may be relevant for understanding slight industrialization elsewhere in Southeast Asia.
TL;DR: In the early 1960s, central planners in the Soviet Union began to mechanize the cotton harvest in earnest in 1958, and they expected more rapid diffusion than the market-driven process that had begun in the United States a decade earlier.
Abstract: When Soviet central planners began to mechanize the cotton harvest in earnest in 1958, they expected more rapid diffusion than the market-driven process that had begun in the United States a decade earlier. But despite high output of cotton-picking machines, the share of the crop harvested mechanically grew more slowly than in the United States. The factor proportions in Central Asia did not justify mechanization: although planners could enforce introduction of the new technology, investment in cotton-harvesting machines was largely a waste of resources. The costs of premature introduction are estimated at over $1 billion in 1960s prices.
TL;DR: In this article, the problem of raising capital in the early days of the U.S. electric-utility industry motivated industry leaders to embrace state rate-of-return regulation in return for a secure territorial monopoly.
Abstract: We provide evidence that the problem of raising capital in the early days of the U.S. electric-utility industry motivated industry leaders to embrace state rate-of-return regulation in return for a secure territorial monopoly. Utility executives anticipated that this would lead to a reduction in borrowing costs. Using firm-level bond data for 1910–1919, we estimate a model and find that state regulation led to lower borrowing costs but that the magnitude of the reduction was small. We also find evidence that output of electric utilities in states with regulation was higher than output in states without regulation.
TL;DR: In this article, Niall Ferguson takes us back to the origins of marketable national debt at the end of the seventeenth century in Europe, deftly laying out the conditions for its success.
Abstract: In this wonderful book, Niall Ferguson takes us back to the origins of marketable national debt at the end of the seventeenth century in Europe, deftly laying out the conditions for its success. These comprise what he calls “the square of power,” which reduces to a parliament (for credible tax backing of the debt), a tax bureaucracy (for collecting the taxes needed to service the debt), a central bank (for maintaining the market value of the debt), and, of course, the national debt itself (for fighting and winning wars). Ferguson then demonstrates the effectiveness of the power emanating from this base, by showing how it won wars for its possessors over the past three centuries. So effective is this combination of institutions, achieved first by Britain in the eighteenth century and then perfected by the United States in the twentieth, that it could have been used even more effectively in winning wars, past and present. Far from imperial “overstretch,” as argued by Paul Kennedy, Ferguson argues that both Britain in the nineteenth century and the United States today suffer from self-inflicted problems of imperial “understretch.” His conclusion will generate a lot of attention, as intended, but his critics will have their work cut out for them.
TL;DR: The authors examined inter-industry variation in wages and profits using data from manufacturing industries from 1820 to 1990 and found that interindustry factor mobility may be strongly related to the processes of industrialization.
Abstract: Interindustry factor mobility is a crucial determinant of the income-distribution effects of exogenous changes in relative commodity prices This examination of interindustry variation in wages and profits using data from manufacturing industries from 1820 to 1990 suggests that interindustry factor mobility may be strongly related to the processes of industrialization Development in the nineteenth century produced a sharp rise in mobility (a decline in interindustry wage and profit differentials) due to rapid improvements in transportation and the introduction of factory production Twentieth-century industrialization, involving greater reliance on specialized equipment and knowledge, reduced levels of interindustry mobility
TL;DR: In this article, the relationship between end payments and education and training clauses varied by region and was associated negatively with freedom-dues clauses, but in Rhode Island and Charleston the relationship was positive.
Abstract: After beginning as a kind of outdoor poor relief, long-term indenture of poor children evolved into a specialized form of craft apprenticeship. Analysis of indenture terms indicates that relationships between end payments (“freedom dues”) and education and training clauses varied by region. In Boston, education and training clauses were associated negatively with freedom-dues clauses, but in Rhode Island and Charleston the relationship was positive. Variation in freedom dues to suit the needs of the master or overseer of the poor, without reference to the worker-child's own interests, resulted from the child's lack of advocacy during contract formation.
TL;DR: This paper examined historical evidence of wage differentials between Chinese sojourners and local workers in artisanal shops and manufactories in Manila at the turn of the twentieth century, showing that longer hours on the job and selection into higher-paying industries were more important considerations.
Abstract: Racial or ethnic wage differentials are common in labor markets composed of easily identifiable groups. This article analyzes a rare source of historical wage data for nonwhite populations. An American labor-market survey of Manila in 1900 revealed that average Chinese wages were about a third higher than Filipino wages. This differential appears to have been in large part an overtime premium that compensated Chinese for their longer workdays; partly it reflected Chinese segregation into higher-paying industries. It is, by contrast, very hard to identify any "pure" ethnic wage premium. V ariation in wages according to race or ethnicity is a well-known characteristic of many labor markets. Historical evidence of such differentials is most plentiful in cases where Europeans or their descendants were one of the groups; studies of wage gaps between groups of non-Europeans are few indeed. This article examines historical evidence of wage differentials between Chinese sojourners and local workers in artisanal shops and manufactories in Manila at the turn of the twentieth century. Average wage premia accruing to workers of a particular ethnicity are often interpreted as evidence that the high-wage ethnic group has somehow gained unfairly at the expense of the low-wage group. The case of the Chinese in Manila, however, indicates that longer hours on the job and selection into higher-paying industries were more important considerations. These characteristics of the Manila Chinese reflected an efficient sojourning strategy, whereby Chinese came to the Philippines specifically to work and save for their eventual return home.
TL;DR: This paper examined the extent and correlates of part-year manufacturing during the late nineteenth century using unpublished data from the manuscripts of the 1870 and 1880 censuses of manufactures and found that a growing share of establishments operated on a full-time-equivalent basis throughout the year.
Abstract: We examine the extent and correlates of part-year manufacturing during the late nineteenth century using unpublished data from the manuscripts of the 1870 and 1880 censuses of manufactures. These are the earliest comprehensive estimates available on this topic. Although the typical manufacturing plant operated full-time, part-year operation was not uncommon. Indeed, the likelihood of part-year operation varied across industries and location and with plant characteristics, and workers in such plants received higher monthly wages than those in firms that operated yearround, compensating them for the loss of work and possible inconvenience. The expansion of manufacturing was central to economic growth and development in nineteenth-century America. An important but neglected aspect of this expansion concerns changes in the length of the work year. In the early stages of industrialization, the commitment to produce was frequently seasonal or part-time, and establishments might shut down operations for weeks or months at a time. But, as transportation improved and markets widened in their geographic scope and as technological and organizational change created economic incentives for more continuous operation, it is generally believed that a growing share of establishments operated on a full-time-equivalent basis throughout the year.' In turn, a greater likelihood of full-year operation may have enhanced the rate of investment or the pace of technological change in manufacturing, providing an engine for endogenous growth.2 However, the conventional wisdom that part-year operation in American manufacturing declined in significance over the course of the nineteenth
TL;DR: A decade has passed since I surveyed the first 50 years of the Journal of Economic History as mentioned in this paper, and this note picks up that story by documenting changes in the "supply" of economic history since 1990.
Abstract: A decade has passed since I surveyed the first 50 years of the Journal of Economic History . Whaples, “Quantitative History.” This note picks up that story by documenting changes in the “supply” of economic history since 1990—the topics of the J OURNAL'S articles, who has had articles published in its pages, and how rankings of economic-history programs are reflected by recent publications. In addition, I use data on articles published in the J OURNAL to examine the “demand” for economic history—which articles have been cited the most often and what types of articles are most likely to be cited.
TL;DR: The authors showed that farmers were less likely to retire than were non-farmers, as the conventional view suggests, and that the first decade of the twentieth century, which the revisionist view drew evidence from, exhibits the opposite pattern.
Abstract: A Traditional explanation for the fall in the labor force participation of older males in the era of industrialization is that it was in part produced by the decline in agriculture. A number of recent studies rejected this view based on the result that farmers were no less likely to retire than were nonfarmers. An examination of a longer period, however, shows that farmers were less likely to retire than were nonfarmers, as the conventional view suggests. Only the first decade of the twentieth century, which the revisionist view drew evidence from, exhibits the opposite pattern. This peculiarity of the years between 1900 to 1910 is likely to have resulted from the unusually high appreciation of farm property during the same period that would have stimulated retirement of farmers. According to the counterfactual LFPR of older males that would have resulted had there been no decline in the relative size of agriculture since 1820, the decrease in the labor force employed in farming accounts for about 20 percent of the fall in the LFPR of men 60 and older between 1880 and 1940. (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.) (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.) (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.) (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
TL;DR: In this paper, Epstein's book is a fortunate combination of economic analysis mixed with serious archival research, a pleasure for both the economist and the historian, a combination of economics and history.
Abstract: Historians, and especially medievalists, love to show how many primary sources they have read over their many years in the archives. The outcome of this painstaking excavation is often a heavily footnoted, barely digestible book. On the other hand, economists who like to be pseudo historians in their spare time often propose brilliant theories but have never so much as glanced through a primary source. Stephan R. Epstein's book is a fortunate combination of economic analysis mixed with serious archival research, a pleasure for both the economist and the historian.
TL;DR: In the U.S. apple industry, between 1890 and 1930, the development of refrigerated rail transportation enabled a national apple industry to emerge as mentioned in this paper, where apples were shipped over long distances and sold in the terminal market on consignment or FOB or in the auction market.
Abstract: Between 1890 and 1930, the development of refrigerated rail transportation enabled a national U.S. apple industry to emerge. Apples were shipped over long distances, and sold in the terminal market on consignment or FOB, or in the auction market. There were frequent disputes over quality, caused by the long distances between buyers and sellers, the natural decline in apple quality over time, and because farmer and railroad moral hazard could accelerate quality deterioration. By 1930, apple transactions relied on government quality standards and inspection services. Evidence suggests that these institutions emerged in response to contract-enforcement and quality problems.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors document how intermediaries shaped markets or, conversely, how market institutions constrained intermediaries in Dijon, where the Estates of Burgundy's debt amounted to nearly half of all bonds in that small market, and there was limited need for intermediaries.
Abstract: We document how intermediaries shaped markets or, conversely, how market institutions constrained intermediaries. In Dijon, where the Estates of Burgundy's debt amounted to nearly half of all bonds in that small market, there was limited need for intermediaries. In the 1740s the borrowing needs of the province expanded, and the estates began to borrow in Paris, where their debt remained a small fraction of the market, and where they relied on notaries to place their bonds and to create a secondary market. These developments assured the estates' capacity to borrow and thus Burgundian autonomy from the French Crown.
TL;DR: The authors used roll call voting and constituency data to provide an improved understanding of how and why the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938 divided the Democratic Party and found that the predominance of southerners among Democrats who opposed the FLSA resulted in part from widespread disfranchisement of low-wage workers in the South.
Abstract: This article uses roll-call voting and constituency data to provide an improved understanding of how and why the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938 divided the Democratic Party. The evidence suggests, first, that the predominance of southerners among Democrats who opposed the FLSA resulted in part from the widespread disfranchisement of low-wage workers in the South and, second, that Democratic opposition to the FLSA in the House of Representatives reflected a weakening of the coalition that had passed so much legislation during the earlier years of the New Deal.