Development of the American Economy

 The NBER  Development of the American Economy Summer Institute is currently taking place. 

There are links to some of the papers here

and you can watch on YouTube

Robert Allen on Arabian Economic History

 Sean Kenny has a new episode of The Economic History Podcast with Robert Allen. 

From the Sand Up: How the Natural Environment shaped the Arabian Economy

Prof. Robert Allen discusses how the desert environment led to a unique economic structure-"from the sand up". Bob takes us through the economic implication of communal lands and describes the differences between the nomadic (Bedouin) and oasis economies. He suggests that religious structures were convenient in eventually consolidating various regions/tribes in the form of states. We also consider the incentives for a unique type of slavery, that arose from the nature of date farming/pearl diving in contrast to the Caribbean sugar plantation experience. 

They also talk about how Allen go into economic history and his advice on doing economic history. 

Overlooked Commodities in American Economic History

 

New NBER working paper today

Firewood in the American Economy: 1700 to 2010.

Nicholas Z. Muller

 

Despite the central role of firewood in the development of the early American economy, prices for this energy fuel are absent from official government statistics and the scholarly literature. This paper presents the most comprehensive dataset of firewood prices in the United States compiled to date, encompassing over 6,000 price quotes from 1700 to 2010. Between 1700 and 2010, real firewood prices increased by between 0.2% and 0.4%, annually, and from 1800 to the Civil War, real prices increased especially rapidly, between 0.7% and 1% per year. Rising firewood prices and falling coal prices led to the transition to coal as the primary energy fuel. Between 1860 and 1890, the income elasticity for firewood switched from 0.5 to -0.5. Beginning in the last decade of the 18th century, firewood output increased from about 18% of GDP to just under 30% of GDP in the 1830s. The value of firewood fell to less than 5% of GDP by the 1880s. Prior estimates of firewood output in the 19th century significantly underestimated its value. Finally, incorporating the new estimates of firewood output into agricultural production leads to higher estimates of agricultural productivity growth prior to 1860 than previously reported in the literature.

 

And if you haven’t already read it take a look at

Ron, Ariel. "When hay was king: Energy history and economic nationalism in the nineteenth-century United States." The American Historical Review 128, no. 1 (2023): 177-213.