Steve J. Wurtzler. Electric Sounds: Technological Change and the Rise of Corporate Mass Media

In the 1920s, a series of striking innovations in sound reproductionmade the American parlor—and movie house—noisierplaces. Improvements in audio recording fostered a new demandfor the phonograph. Millions of Americans began buying theirfirst radios, even as the infant industry struggled to establishits economic base and define its cultural mission. By the late1920s, the motion picture industry was producing talking features. In Electric Sounds, Steve J. Wurtzler     

Frederick H. Smith. Caribbean Rum: A Social and Economic History

Frederick Smith's early evocation (p. 2) of Sidney Mintz's 1985master-work Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in ModernHistory is most unfortunate because Smith is no Mintz—exceptthat they are both anthropologists. This sad little book suffersby comparison on most every page. In contrast to Mintz, it isnot good social history, it is not good economic history, andit is not good anthropology. More particularly for readers ofEnterprise Society, Caribbean Rum is not good     

Pioneering Modern Corporate Governance: A View from London in 1900

Around 1900 Britain was exceptionally suited to pioneering largescale enterprises because of the precocious development of itsequity markets and London's experimentation with a more eclecticrange of corporate governance techniques than the world's smallerand less cosmopolitan financial centers. Information dissemination,incentives, and reputation—developed by a serendipitousmix of legal compulsions and flexible voluntarism—setthe scene for the growth of large, UK-based, national and internationalcorporations in the twentieth century. "The investment business is not with us as well developed oras well understood as it is in England." W. H. Lyon, Capitalization (Boston, 1913), 207.     

Charles F. McGovern. Sold American: Consumption and Citizenship, 1890 1945

Charles McGovern's Sold American: Consumption and Citizenship,1890–1945, explains how Americans came to see consumerismas central to their national identity. More specifically, itexamines how two key interest groups—advertisers and consumeractivists—battled over and ultimately helped define thepolitical meaning of consumerism. According to McGovern, in the early twentieth-century, advertisersassumed consumers were "childlike, irrational, ungovernable,and unpredictable" (p.60), and hoped to sway this malleablemass by convincing them of the deeper value of consumerism.To     

Paul Jobling. Man Appeal: Advertising, Modernism, and Menswear * Linda Welters and Patricia Cunningham, eds. Twentieth-Century American Fashion

Since the New Millennium, the study of fashion and apparel hasblossomed as an academic subdiscipline, riding on the achievementsof curatorial pioneers like Claudia Kidwell and the next generationof historians, Valerie Steele and Christopher Breward. In thepublishing world, Berg Press has capitalized on the fervor withthe journal Fashion Theory and the dress, body, and culturebook series. Over the past decade, more than three dozen books—monographsand edited volumes—have come out of the dress, body, andculture series. Many of     

Ivan T. Berend. An Economic History of 20th Century Europe: Economic Regimes from Laissez-Faire to Globalization

If economics is the dismal science, it should be no surprisethat economic history—with its many statistics and tables—hasfew opportunities for lyrical flourishes to avoid becoming dismalreading. Ivan Berend's very competent economic history of Europein the twentieth century makes a great effort to overcome thisgeneric failing with lively analysis and interesting asides. While providing a rich assortment of good comparative statisticsand clear graphics, Berend does an excellent job of integratinghis economic story into     

John Patrick Diggins. Ronald Reagan: Fate, Freedom, and Making of History

More words have been written about Ronald Reagan than most otherpresidents combined, but few of these volumes are serious historicaltreatments—the history has been too fresh and the archivalmaterial too difficult to access. As a result, while the literatureon Reagan is vast, the scholarship has been scanty. But, overthe past few years several books on Reagan have appeared (includingRichard Reeves' President Reagan and Gil Troy's Morning     

Robert M. Collins. Transforming America: Politics and Culture during the Reagan Years

Robert Collins has written two superb books treating modernAmerican business history—The Business Response to Keynes(1981), and More: The Politics of Growth in Postwar America(2000). In this, his most recent and elegantly written book,he takes on the rather more slippery, amorphous cultural historyof the period. He even dives undaunted into that most murkyphenomenon, "postmodernism." There, he has some delightful thingsto say about "the therapeutic culture" and the "self-esteem"fad that it produced. In his treatment     

Demystifying Japan's Economic Recovery

After having undergone protracted economic doldrums, Japan has begun to attract the world’s attention. Prime Minister Shintaro Abe, taking office in September 2006, pledged to continue his predecessor’s reforms while looking to closer economic ties with Japan’s neighboring countries. This paper examines the challenges the Abe administration must address, the reforms the administration still needs to tackle, and the problems that lie ahead. It starts with an evaluation of Japan’s economic condition from a long-term perspective, especially the drastic change in its labor market and its rapidly aging society. It then discusses the unfinished reforms the government is facing— restored fiscal balances, a less-regulated economy both at home and abroad, and a new innovation-driven growth path. In sharp contrast to his single-minded and charismatic predecessor, Prime Minister Abe has taken a less spectacular and more nuanced stance toward reforms. A more market-principled Japan will create increased competitive conditions for economic players in both the private and public sectors. Japan’s economy will face a precarious state—swinging between an economy armed with marketbased principles (but suffering from a “growth pain”) and an “ugly Japan” that divides the haves and the have-nots. JEL Classification 053, J10     

The Baltics: Continuing Boom or Bursting Bubble?

Since the late 1990s, the economies of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have experienced unprecedented economic growth, which has attracted a large number of foreign investors. American companies were among the first to seek business opportunities and have invested over $1 billion in the three countries as of 2008. However, the boom—partly financed on a loose credit policy—has recently created a fragile economic situation due to soaring wages, double-digit inflation, and high current account deficits. The resulting economic deceleration in the first half of 2008 has led analysts to comment that the “Baltic Bubble” is about to burst, potentially leading to a long-term recession. Other experts, nevertheless, maintain that the three countries are only experiencing a natural consolidation, which does not seriously endanger business opportunities in the long run. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the current condition of the Baltic economies and the environment for businesses there in order to determine if the three countries will still be attractive destinations for foreign direct investment (FDI) in the future.     

Richard Coopey, ed. Information and Technology Policy: An International History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. xvi + 346 pp. ISBN 0-19-924105-8, $99.50 (cloth).

Richard Coopey’s Information and Technology Policy isan edited volume featuring an impressive array of scholars whoprovide nuanced accounts of national governmental policies relatedto the computer and (to a lesser extent) software industries.As Coopey writes in his introduction, the post–World WarII period is remembered as a time of American political, economic,and technological ascendancy. In the design, manufacture, anddistribution of computers, the United     

Robin Pearson. Insuring the Industrial Revolution: Fire Insurance in Great Britain, 1700-1850. Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate, 2004. xiii + 434 pp. ISBN 0-7546-336302, $99.95 (cloth).

Robin Pearson’s Insuring the Industrial Revolution providesa richly detailed account of the British fire insurance industrythrough the mid-nineteenth century. Whereas most previous accountshave focused on single companies, Pearson’s study encompassesthe entire industry of London and provincial firms and seeksto place the industry within the larger context of British economichistory. British economic historians have long overlooked the contributionof insurance, and service industries in general, to the nation’seconomic     

Clifford J. Doerksen. American Babel: Rogue Radio Broadcasters of the Jazz Age. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005. xi + 157 pp. ISBN 0-8122-3871-0, $34.95 (cloth).

In American Babel: Rogue Broadcasters of the Jazz Age, CliffordDoerksen presents a lively discussion of the economic implicationsof cultural hierarchy on radio broadcasting. In this slim volume,only 176 pages (including footnotes), he tells the stories ofseveral radio pioneers who have been largely ignored in theretellings of the medium’s history. The difficulties inexploring the world of independent broadcasters long has beena lament of radio scholars, and Doerksen’s book represents     

Michael Zakim. Ready-Made Democracy: A History of Men's Dress in the American Republic, 1760-1860. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. x + 296 pp. ISBN 0-226-97793-5, $30.00 (cloth).

Michael Zakim’s Ready-Made Democracy positions men’sclothing manufacturers at the heart of the democratic and capitalistictransformations that engulfed the United States between itsfounding and the mid-nineteenth century. He argues that thehistory of the men’s suit, embodying as it does a hostof social, economic, and political relationships, presents anunequaled opportunity to observe these changes. Zakim createsa nuanced interpretation that responds to a half century ofhistoriographical debate about the nature of the market revolutionin America.     

Editor's Introduction

Editorial transitions bring "legacies"—articles acceptedor in process during the departing editor's term that appearin issues during the first phase of the new administration,alongside an increasing number of newly received essays. Consistentwith this pattern, all but one contribution to Enterprise &Society's March 2008 issue were initially reviewed     

Fiscal Realities for the State and Local Governments

The U.S. economic slump of 2008, as usual for all economic slumps, has taken a dramatic toll on state and local government revenues and budget surpluses. As predictable as this is when properly modeled, states in particular have been even less well prepared than normal. Therefore, it appears that government budget officers, policymakers and their economic advisors, and private-sector economists need help in understanding the external and internal drivers of budget outcomes. A primary goal of this study is to quantify the highly regular, cyclical revenue patterns that emerge when actual revenues are purified of legislated changes. This should assist policy formulation today—as states consider higher tax rates or borrowing—by promoting an understanding of what is temporary and what is permanent in the current revenue weakness. Moreover, if these lessons are learned, future revenue forecasting and budget planning at the state and local levels should be materially enhanced. A second goal is to examine the true sources of the exceptional expenditure growth that precluded the normal buildup of a solid surplus during the economic boom of 2003–2007. The principal culprit is shown to be state and local government pay inflation that has far exceeded private sector norms for the past three years rather than an exceptional medical care burden, as some might think.     

Kenneth Lipartito and David B. Sicilia, eds. Constructing Corporate America: History, Politics, and Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. xii + 369 pp. ISBN 0-19-925189-4, $99.50 (cloth); 0-19-925190-8, $29.95 (paper).

Rationality, efficiency, meritocracy, productivity, innovation,professionalism: the people who have built, operated, and championedAmerican corporations have claimed these goals and means inorder to explain how and why limited liability firms evolvedin the United States. Such powerful constructions of ideas—noless than of steel—have seduced generations of analystsand citizens into accepting once contested corporate forms asthe inevitable outcomes of irresistible economic processes. The great achievements of Constructing Corporate America liein its compelling demonstrations that U.S. corporations’forms, functions, and discourses evolved—and still change—asproducts of their     

Who Supplied My Cheese? Supply Chain Management in the Global Economy

Today, with an Internet connection and some specialized skills, individuals and companies located in the remotest ends of the earth can compete and collaborate globally. This paradigm shift has occurred as technological forces, the fracturing of political barriers, and a relentless drive for greater efficiencies changed how we work and where we work, ushering in the age of globalization in ways never imagined previously. While many factors can influence macroeconomic variables—including better monetary and fiscal policies, freer trade, and fewer economic shocks—evidence is presented here that better global supply chain management and a more global economy should not be overlooked. On the one hand, these new practices have likely helped to keep inflation lower, reduce economic volatility, strengthen productivity growth, and improve living standards. On the other hand, these new practices cause greater uncertainties and calls for protectionist policies, as outsourcing and offshoring move work to lower cost providers with little regard for geopolitical boundaries. JEL Classification F110, F020     

New business formation in a rapidly growing economy: the Irish experience

The extraordinary growth of the Irish economy since the mid-1990s—the ‘Celtic Tiger’—has attracted a great deal of interest, commentary and research. Indeed, many countries look to Ireland as an economic development role model, and it has been suggested that Ireland might provide key lessons for other EU members as they seek to achieve the objectives set out in the Lisbon Agenda. Much of the discussion of Ireland’s growth has focused on its possible triggers: the long-term consequences of the late 1980s fiscal stabilisation, EU structural funds, education, wage moderation and devaluation of the Irish punt. The industrial policy perspective has highlighted the importance of inflows of foreign direct investment, but a notable absence from the discourse on the ‘Celtic Tiger’ has been any mention of the role of new business venture creation and entrepreneurship. In this paper we use unpublished Irish VAT data for the years 1988–2004 to provide the first detailed look at national trends in business birth and death rates in Ireland over the ‘take-off’ period. We also use sub-national VAT data to shed light on spatial trends in new venture creation. Our overall conclusions are that new business formation made no detectable contribution to the acceleration of Ireland’s growth in the late 1990s, although we do find evidence of spatial convergence in per capita business stocks.