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Using an original product level database, this article analyzes the nature and dynamics of Swiss specializations during the “first globalization” (1850–1913). I study the comparative advantages, as well as the evolution of the trade structure, in order to understand economic performance differences between Switzerland and France. Despite differences in terms of market size, some common trends are identified. I also argue that Switzerland's skilled labor force, along with an intelligent choice of economic policy, allowed this country to adapt its specialization structure to global demand and enjoy rapid economic growth.

The paper published below was prepared by Taylor Ostrander for Frank Knight’s course, Economic Theory, Economics 301, during the Fall 1933 quarter.

Discuss in detail the uses which might legitimately be made of the following passage by the writer of a profound study of economic life and thought in France at the end of the reign of Louis XIV. In answering the question make full use of your knowledge of (a) historical criticism; (b) French economic and general history.

This paper addresses revolutionary changes in the education, fertility and market work of U.S. families formed in the 1870s–1920s: Fertility fell from 5.3 to 2.6; the graduation rate of their children increased from 7% to 50%; and the fraction of adulthood wives devoted to market-oriented work increased from 7% to 23% (by one measure).

These trends are addressed within a unified framework to examine the ability of several proposed mechanisms to quantitatively replicate these changes. Based on careful calibration, the choices of successive generations of representative husband-and-wife households over the quantity and quality of their children, household production, and the extent of mother’s involvement in market-oriented production are simulated.

Rising wages, declining mortality, a declining gender wage gap, and increased efficiency and public provision of schooling cannot, individually or in combination, reduce fertility or increase stocks of human capital to levels seen in the data. The best fit of the model to the data also involves: (1) a decreased tendency among parents to view potential earnings of children as the property of parents and (2) rising consumption shares per dependent child.

Greater attention should be given the determinants of parental control of the work and earnings of children for this period.

One contribution is the gathering of information and strategies necessary to establish an initial baseline, and the time paths for parameters and targets for this period beset with data limitations. A second contribution is identifying the contributions of various mechanisms toward reaching those calibration targets.