AEH quiz 2

Irving Fisher argued that farmers would not benefit (at least not as much as the Populists claimed) from inflation produced by adding silver to the money supply because

inflation would produce higher interest rates on farm mortgages

In a typical sharecropping contract, such as the Grimes contract, the cropper got ____ from growing and selling cotton.

1/2 of the income

World War I started in August _____.

1914

Consider the following diagram (the same one that's in the other questions) which shows the increase in the supply of cotton as a result of the "cotton-lock-in." Identify the area (by naming the corners) that represents the gain to consumers (consumers surplus) from the imposition of the sharecropping system in the South.

ABFD

What is the "Real Bills Doctrine"? (According to the lecture, not google).

Banks should invest in short-term loans to business arising from REAL business transactions.

In class I compared the wealth of John D. Rockefeller in 1915 today with the wealth of Bill Gates in 2015. I concluded that if we use a consumer price index to inflate Rockefeller's wealth (convert it into today's money) we would conclude that _____ was the richer of the two, and that if we use Gross Domestic Product to inflate Rockefeller's wealth we would conclude that _____ was the richer of the two.

Bill Gates, John D. Rockefeller

In the nineteenth century many industrial countries adopted the gold standard because _____ adopted the gold standard.

Britain

What American city became Hog Butcher for the World?

Chicago IL

Consider the following diagram which shows the increase in the supply of cotton as a result of the "cotton-lock-in." Identify (by naming the endpoints of a line segment) the change in price resulting from the imposition of a regime of sharecropping.

DA

In class I argued that at toward the end of the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad they began to lay track quickly and without regard to its long-run durability because ____.

Federal legislation had created financial incentives to finish quickly

Consider the following diagram which shows the increase in the supply of cotton as a result of the "cotton-lock-in." Identify (by naming the endpoints of a line segment) the change in quantity resulting from the imposition of a regime of sharecropping.

HI

Why is this man eating his shoe?

He ran out of food while searching for gold.

What failure of a financial firm started the Panic of 1873?

Jay Cooke and Company

What failure of a financial firm started the Panic of 1893?

Knickerbocker Trust Company

What failure started caused the Panic of 1907?

Knickerbocker Trust Company

It appears that the pioneers of the use of continuous flow production in the United States were ____.

The Chicago meatpackers

Why was the British blockade of Europe so effective in WWI?

The Germans were dependent on imported supplies of fertilizer.

In 1896 William Jennings Bryan declared that "Thou Shall Not Crucify Mankind upon a Cross of Gold" Who was Bryan criticizing? (Who was "Thou"?).

The Republican Party

Adam Smith used the example of _____ to illustrate how the specialization made possible by the factory system increased production.

a pin factory

Under the classical gold standard exchange rates were fixed because each country on the gold standard _____.

bought and sold gold at a predetermined price in terms of its own currency

Suppose we compare the income (market basket of goods consumed) of sharecroppers with the income of slaves. Which of the following statements is true before an allowance is made for the increase in leisure time available to sharecroppers.

by 1879 the income of sharecroppers was larger than the income of slaves, although the rate of increase was no higher than the rate of increase achieved by northern workers over the same period.

One major cost of the classical gold standard compared with modern monetary systems was that _____.

central banks might not have enough gold to alleviate a panic

Under the agricultural system that prevailed in the South after the Civil War the sharecropper often made use of the crop lien law. This law allowed a sharecropper to _________.

contract a debt by pledging part of his future crop as collateral

After the Civil War the southern sharecropper was often tied to the land by an economic system similar in some ways to, although less onerous than, slavery, and known to economic historians as ______.

debt peonage

The price level began to rise after 1896 until World War I. I attributed this rise to

discoveries of gold in South Africa and other countries

Robert Fogel's conclusion from his study of the impact of the railroads was that ___.

even without the railroads the U.S. would have been a rich nation, but the railroads made a positive contribution

In the Deep South after the Civil War (say 15 years after) cotton production per person was ___ and pig production per person was _____ compared with production levels just prior to the Civil War.

higher, lower

What is "Bagehot's rule"? (According to the lecture, not google).

in a panic the central bank should lend freely to banks at a high interest rate.

One of the greatest advantages of the railroad over earlier forms of transportation was its speed and its ability to stay open throughout the winter. Robert Fogel attempted to measure the impact of these advantages for eastern wholesale distributors and retailers of commodities by examining ___.

inventories of agricultural products held in eastern markets

In class I argued that slave agriculture based on the "gang system" was rarely used in the North before the Revolution because _____.

it wasn't profitable on farms that produced a mixture of crops and animal products.

Who is this guy? When they asked him what the stock market would do, what did he say?

it will fluctuate

In class I noted that during the Populist era shifts in the "rain line" fooled many pioneer farmers. Another way of saying this is that the farmers had mistakenly bought _____.

land where frequent droughts made it hard to grow crops

The development of national banking in the South after the Civil War was inhibited by

large capital requirements in the National Banking Act

The Crime of 1873 was

legislation that denied the mint the right to coin silver dollars

Under the gold standard a country whose prices were unusually high compared with the rest of the world would find that it would ___ gold, and that its prices would ___.

lose, fall into line with the rest of the world

After the Civil War labor-hours per capita in agriculture in the South was ____ than it had been before the Civil War, and physical crop output per capita was _____ than it had been before the Civil War.

lower, lower

President Woodrow Wilson argued that the United States should enter World War I to ___

make the world safe for democracy

According to the class lecture, the Populists were especially outraged by the practice of the railroads of charging ____.

more per ton-mile to haul goods a short distance than to haul them a long distance

How many banking panics has Canada had?

none

President Warren Harding argued that what America needed after World War I was ___.

normalcy

According to Stephen Magee's view of the Standard Oil Trust, John D. Rockefeller got control of independent refiners by ______.

offering independent refiners high prices that reflected the profits to be made from monopoly and efficiency

Suppose that as a sharecropper you are offered a farm to rent, Holding the share constant, are you likely to be offered more land ____.

on land near the crest of a mountain, where land must be cleared of rocks before it can be used.

When World War I broke out in August 1914 there was a wave of ______ on Wall Street and so ______.

pessimism, the stock market was closed for four months to prevent Europeans selling their stocks and withdrawing their gold from the U.S.

In class I argued that the localized markets that existed before the Civil War provided a form of insurance for farmers because ____.

prices of agricultural products would rise when there was a poor harvest

On the whole, the period of U.S. neutrality in WWI from the outbreak of the war until entry by the U.S. was a period of unusual ___.

prosperity for U.S. agriculture and industry

According to the "rules of the gold standard game" the central bank of a country on the gold standard, which is running a balance of payments deficit, should ____.

raise the interest rate it charges on loans

In class I showed that the wheat farmer's "terms of trade" worsened between 1870 and 1895. Of the following which explanation of this phenomenon is most consistent with the class and text discussions?

rising world supplies of agricultural products reduced the real price of agricultural products

In the Strange Career of Jim Crow, historian C. Vann Woodward argued that _______.

segregation of the races in the South developed in the late nineteenth century

According to Ida Tarbell, and other "muckrakers," John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil got control of independent refiners by ______.

selling refinery products at a low price until the independent refiner was driven into bankruptcy.

According to the lecture, and to the text, which of the following interest groups was most successful in capturing the Interstate Commerce Commission?

shippers of coal, oil, and similar products

What color were Dorothy's slippers in the book about the Wizard of Oz, and in the movie?

silver, ruby

During World War I many leading economists argued that it would be more equitable to finance the war mainly through ____ so that ____.

taxes, draftees would not have to pay high taxes after they returned from the war

The construction company that built the Union Pacific Railroad, and that became part of the biggest financial scandal in the nineteenth century, was ___.

the Credit Mobilier of America

After the Civil War two experiments were made with land reform at _________ and ______. These experiments are generally regarded by economic historians as _______ .

the Jefferson Davis plantation, the Sea Islands of Georgia, successes

When Midwestern farmers proclaimed (toward the end of the 19th century) that "rain follows the plow." They meant that ____.

the annual amount of rainfall would increase once farming began in an area.

In 1869 the "golden spike" was driven into the ground. This symbolized

the completion of the Union Pacific Railroad uniting the eastern and western parts of the United States

An attempt to resurrect the "gang system" of agriculture as a wage system in the South after the Civil War ____.

was made but failed because the Freedmen refused to work under the "gang system" except at wages that most landowners could not afford to pay

One advantage of land grants to the RRs compared with cash subsidies (as revealed in the history of the transcontinental RRs) was that _____.

the land grants gave the railroad builders an incentive to build durable roads

Midwestern farmers often benefitted from the coming of the railroads because it was then easier to market their products. Robert Fogel attempted to measure the impact of this benefit of the railroads by examining ___.

the rental price of farm land in the Midwest

According to Alfred Chandler the key economic development (among those listed below) leading to the growth of giant vertically integrated corporations in the period 1869-1893 was ________.

the rise in the use of continuous-flow technologies

This candy bar, according to Professor Rockoff -- although probably not many other people - is a good symbol of _____.

the second industrial revolution

If non-rail users of steel benefit from increased railroad building, the conclusion would be

the supply of steel was downward sloping

One advantage of the cash subsidies to the RRs compared with land grants (as revealed in the history of the transcontinental RRs) was that _____.

the value of the cash subsidies was easier to measure

Where were these people going?

to Washington to ask Congress for a road building program