Economic theory suggests that the federal government plays a marginal role in causing some regions to become technological leaders while historical scholarship suggests the opposite. We test the validity of the historical perspective using an instrumental variables approach that leverages fine-grained defense procurement data from 1966-2000.

Segregation is the separation of racial, ethnic, and income groups from one another. Integration is a more nebulous concept. Although widely understood to encompass the cohabitation of multiracial and ethnic individuals in one area, there is no consensus on what the racial and cultural composition qualifies as a “truly” integrated neighborhood. This paper conceptually maps the varied definitions of integration, in an attempt to glean commonalities amongst disparate views of the practice.

Wage-earner bankruptcy is one small part of the American political economy, but it is an excellent vantage point from which to see the necessity of a theory of political racialization. How else can we explain how an institution that appears race-neutral on the surface has such divergent outcomes for filers of different races? How else can we explain the prominence of racialized narratives in the ways white Americans understand their debt-based insecurity and eventual bankruptcy filings? In this (working) paper, I propose a theory of racialization in the political economy that allows us to answer a big question in the field of American political economy: How is racism constitutive of the American political economy?

Significant bodies of literature have examined the political links between gender and technology, technological change and unions, and unions and gender relations. But fewer studies close this circle and examine how gender, technological change, and union organizing interact simultaneously to shape each other's politics. The few that do rightly identify unions, particularly craft unions, as both outcomes and reproducers of patriarchal power structures. However, the broad persistence of patriarchal attitudes limits their ability to explain patterns of variation in women's workforce inclusion. To address this gap I develop a theory that identifies different union strategies of labor force control as central to understanding their responses to new technologies and women workers. I test this theory through case comparisons of typographical unions in the United States and Britain from the 1830s to the 1980s. I show that, where the closed shop was obtained through a strategy of incorporation, unions were more receptive to women workers and new technologies. But where the closed shop was maintained through a system of strict apprenticeship, unions were more obstructive towards new technologies and more exclusionary towards women.

A large body of scholarship has documented how presidents and parties "politicize” bureaucracies by placing individuals in government positions that share their ideological persuasions. The present research, however, investigates a more extreme measure of politicization—“counter-staffing,” a term coined by historian James Gross (1974), refers to the strategy of appointing officials to agencies to which they are fundamentally opposed in an effort to undermine government operations. In this paper, I bring together several lines of scholarship on labor and corporate power in American politics, along with original archival data, to show how the changes in the kinds of individuals who serve in top posts at labor and employment agencies have altered the development of the state’s relationship to the free market. My evidence reveals that these agencies have undergone transformational shifts in staffing that have taken what used to be cutting-edge policymakers and enforcers and relegated them to being mere appendages of the bureaucratic state, forever frozen in circa-1938 labor and employment law. (This session will be a joint session with Adam Parker)

I analyze the long period of regulatory stability from the New Deal to the 1970s. Why did the U.S. Congress radically intervene in the pre-market American economy in ways that were exceptional compared to other Western democracies? Why did congressional Democrats remain steadfast in their support for the New Deal regulatory regime despite Wall Street’s persistent attack and attempts at circumvention? I argue that the decentralizing institutions in the House made Democrats more parochially focused on small banks, adjacent industries and organized laborers in their districts. As a result, House Democrats vigorously maintained the New Deal regulatory regime from the New Deal to the 1970s.

After experimenting with fiat money during the Civil War and Reconstruction, why did the United States return to the gold standard in 1879? What complicated monetary policy in this era was the presence of three ideologically distinct policy agendas--institutionalization of the federal greenbacks, national bank notes, or a return to the gold standard--which split existing coalitions and interest groups awkwardly. Through a combination of Logit analyses of roll call votes, process tracing, and archival research, this paper argues that ideas about the nature of money and the government’s role in managing the economy played a central role in the reinstitutionalization of the gold standard in postbellum America.These findings contribute to a growing literature on the creation of the U.S. hybrid, public-private monetary regime. (This session will be a joint session with Richard Barton)

In this session, junior faculty working in American Political Economy and related areas will discuss their experiences and provide practical guidance, including tips about crafting their APE research agenda, research methods, and how to turn a dissertation into a first book.