Z: **Archived from Fall 2007**: American Economic History: Economics 113

Tuesday Morning and I'm Still Hanging Around...

Economics 113 Final Exam

Identifications: do all; identify and explain their significance in American economic history (1/3 of exam):

1. The Cold War
2. Keynesian economics
3. Social Security
4. The productivity speedup of the 1990s
5. The Phillips Curve
6. Teachers, nurses, waitresses, secretaries…
7. National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)
8. Henry Ford
9. Hacienda
10. GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade)/WTO
11. Mississippi-Missouri-Ohio River System
12. Canal Building Boom
13. Fugitive Slave Law
14. Sharecropping
15. OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries)
16. Chinese exclusion act
17. The Great Compression (of the income distribution)
18. Alexander Hamilton
19. The Stock Market Crash of 1929
20. Paul Volcker

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Short Answers: do 6 of 9 (1/3 or exam):

1. The past third of a century has seen, first, a significant slowdown in productivity growth (leading to a great deal of worry about whether there are indeed rapidly-approaching “limits to growth”) and then a significant speed-up in growth (leading to a great deal of exuberance, irrational and otherwise, at the end of the 1990s). Briefly discuss the causes of both the productivity slowdown starting in the 1970s and the productivity speedup starting in the 1990s.

2. Why would an international trade economist like David Ricardo have thought that the United States would and should become a very large almost entirely agrarian civilization--a giant Canada? It was clear by 1900 that David Ricardo was wrong? Why was he wrong?

3. How was land distributed by the federal government to farmers moving westward in the nineteenth century? What impact did this system of land distribution have on the economy?

4. Was pre-Civil War American slavery profitable? Was it efficient?

5. What, in your view, were the most important causes of the Great Depression? Why haven't they--or equally destructive factors and events--been repeated?

6. Briefly summarize the role played by tariffs and quotas in American economic history.

7. What was the Marshall Plan? Was it important?

8. What were the major components of the New Deal? What were the major components of the Great Society?

9. Why is the United States less of a social democratic country than the countries of northwest Europe? Is this divergence a good thing or a bad thing?

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Essays: do one (1/3 of exam):

1. Sketch the economic role of African-Americans in the United States from colonial times to today. What were the major factors and processes that kept African-Americans relatively poor over the past three centuries? To what extent are these processes still operating today? And, in your view, how much longer is the shadow cast by past discrimination likely to last?

2. Why are business cycles these days smaller than they were in the late nineteenth century or during the Great Depression?

3. What reasons are there to think that the role of the federal government will grow further in the next half century? What reasons are there to think that the growth of the federal government in the past 80 years has carried it beyond its sustainable size, and that its size will decline in the next half century?

4. Outline the economic role played by immigration to America since 1492.

Econ 113: American Economic History: Mock Final Exam

Identifications: do all (1/3 of exam):

1. The Cold War against the Soviet Union.
2. The Federal Reserve
3. Keynesian economics
4. Medicare and Medicaid
5. Social Security
6. GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade)/WTO
7. Productivity slowdown
8. Phillips Curve
9. Gilded Age
10. Teachers, nurses, waitresses, secretaries…
11. Mass production
12. Freely-available land
13. 1492
14. National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)
15. Henry Ford
16. Gold Standard
17. Encomienda
18. Navigation Acts
19. Cotton Gin
20. Glorious Revolution (in Britain)
21. Mississippi-Missouri-Ohio River System
22. American System of Manufactures
23. Canal Building Boom
24. Middle Passage

Short Answers: do 4 of 6 (1/3 or exam):

1. The past third of a century has seen, first, a significant slowdown in productivity growth (leading to a great deal of worry about whether there are indeed rapidly-approaching “limits to growth”) and then a significant speed-up in growth (leading to a great deal of exuberance, irrational and otherwise, at the end of the 1990s). Briefly discuss the causes of both the productivity slowdown starting in the 1970s and the productivity speedup starting in the 1990s.

2. Why did the European settler population in what was to become the United States grow so fast in the two centuries after 1600? Why were there so few indigenous inhabitants to resist the occupation of the land that was to become the United States by European settlers?

3. Why would an international trade economist like David Ricardo have thought that the United States would and should become a very large almost entirely agrarian civilization--a giant Canada? It was clear by 1900 that David Ricardo was wrong? Why was he wrong?

4. The story of the United States is one of extraordinary economic growth—the United States today is still, by a substantial margin, the most productive economy in the world. Which factor would you assess as most important of all in driving U.S. economic success? Why?

5. Why did Alexander Hamilton (and others) believe that America's national debt could, under the right circumstances, be a national blessing?

6. In your view, is U.S. economic policymaking today still shaped by the memory of the Great Depression and a fear of another such, or has the memory died away so far that it is no longer a serious consideration?

Essays: do one (1/3 of exam):

1. Outline the major changes in the economic role of women in America in the twentieth century. Draw up a balance sheet: in your estimation, which changes have been broadly good? Which changes have been broadly bad?

2. Why was the Great Depression the only great depression that the U.S. has suffered? What are the chances that the U.S. will suffer another economic catastrophe like the Great Depression in the next half century?

3. Sketch the economic role of African-Americans in the United States from colonial times to today. What were the major factors and processes that kept African-Americans relatively poor over the past three centuries? To what extent are these processes still operating today? And, in your view, how much longer is the shadow cast by past discrimination likely to last?

4. The federal government today plays an enormous role in the economy. Outline what that role is, and how it has grown since independence. Assess what pieces of the federal government's role in the economy are positive and what pieces are negative.