Daniel M G Raff
Biographic Data
| ID | 1294807 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Daniel M G Raff |
| GIVEN NAMES | Daniel M G |
| FAMILY NAME | Raff |
| SIGNATURE | RAFF D M G |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Pennsylvania |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 43 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 17 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1988 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Roundtable Review
In 2023, Princeton University Press published Richard Langlois’s The Corporation and the Twentieth Century: The History of American Business Enterprise. It is a book of comparable mass to Alfred Chandler’s 1977 The Visible Hand and equally ambitious. 1 The erudition is vast. (The bibliography alone runs 78 closely-printed pages. There are 122 pages of equally closely-printed footnotes to the 522-page main text whose own font is not large.) A prod…
Introduction to the Symposium
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Business History and the Problem of Action
The problem of action is the problem of both identifying and explaining it. The two aspects are not as distinct as this formulation might suggest, and the present paper focuses on the first, bringing in only as much of the second as is absolutely necessary. (A companion paper focuses on the second in a similar way.) Because business history is for all practical purposes a history of organizations and because action in and by organizations general…
Introduction
This article celebrates the life, career, and intellectual contribution of Leslie Hannah, while also summarising the other papers of this festschrift. We discuss Hannah’s early life, the development of business history prior to the launch of the London School of Economics’ Business History Unit (BHU), together with Hannah’s contribution to business history research and disciplinary development during and after his time as BHU director. We conclud…
Hannah on ‘Hollywood history’
This article explores Leslie Hannah’s critique of the literature of international comparative business history including and deriving from Alfred Chandler’s Scale and Scope: The Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1990). This critique is in part empirical and in part deeper. Some of the key texts are published and more or less accessible but key elements remain unpublished (at least in English). The article …
Real estate prices in Beijing, 1644 to 1840
The immaterial text
Le texte immatériel : la technologie numérique, l’accord Google livres et la distribution de la culture imprime aux États-Unis Quelle est la signification de l’entrée en 2004 de l’entreprise de sélection de l’information sur Internet Google dans la numérisation des contenus conservés par les principales bibliothèques de recherche ? S’agit-il d’un distributeur nouveau, immatériel, par rapport aux librairies et aux grands distributeurs classiques o…
The Teaching of Business History in the United States
Cet article précise les frontières entre l’histoire des entreprises et l’histoire économique. À partir de ce préalable épistémologique et conceptuel, il revient sur le contexte institutionnel qui, aux États-Unis, a vu se mettre en place les enseignements de l’une et de l’autre de ces disciplines. L’intérêt pour l’histoire économique dans les établissements où elle a été principalement enseignée a connu un déclin dans les décennies récentes, mais …
Against Whig History
By the end of the twentieth century, it had become clear that the grand synthesis laid out by Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., in The Visible Hand, Scale and Scope , and other writings was badly in need of revision. It was in need of revision because the type of enterprise that Chandler took to be the acme of capitalist economic organization–the large, vertically integrated, horizontally diversified, managerially directed corporation–was clearly in retre…
Beyond Markets and Hierarchies
We sketch a new synthesis of American business history to replace (and subsume) that put forward by Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., most famously in his book The Visible Hand (1977). We see the broader subject as the history of the institutions of coordination in the economy, with the management of information and the addressing of problems of informational asymmetries representing central problems for firm-and relationship design. Our analysis emphasiz…
Session 7a
This paper is an effort to build on the essays collected in our three NBER conference volumes by offering a new synthesis of American business history. We move beyond the traditional markets versus hierarchies (or markets versus central planning) dichotomy and argue that one can observe in the cross-section of the economy at any moment in time a variety of coordination mechanisms in use, man of which do not fit neatly into these ideal types. We a…
Coordination and Information
Coordination and Information
Case studies that examine how firms co-ordinate economic activity in the face of asymmetric information, information not equally available to all parties, are the focus of this volume. In an ideal world, the market would be the optimal provider of co-ordination, but in the real world of incomplete information, some activities are better coordinated in other ways. Divided into three parts, this book addresses co-ordination within firms, at the bor…
Inside the Business Enterprise
Intra-Industry Heterogeneity and the Great Depression
Reliance on a “representative firm” approach in studying industrial behavior during the Great Depression obscures economically interesting patterns. A newly discovered data source lets us form and study an establishment-level panel dataset on the motor vehicles industry, one of the largest in 1929. Substantial intraindustry heterogeneity led to large composition effects in employment, output, and productivity: the large number of plants that shut…
Making Cars and Making Money in the Interwar Automobile Industry
Many observers of the American automobile industry have focused on Ford's development of mass production shortly before the First World War; they have then moved to General Motors's success in the 1920s, usually attributing it to a marketing innovation, the introduction of the annual model change. This article argues that the emphasis on GM's marketing strategy is misplaced and that profound changes in the organization of production, exploiting t…
Wage Determination Theory and the Five-Dollar Day at Ford
This paper examines the five-dollar day compensation policy instituted by the Ford Motor Company in 1914 in light of recent developments in wage-determination theory. The new wage was above the opportunity cost of the labor employed. Yet various efficiency wage theories, by which high wages increase output, are shown to provide an implausible explanation. The particular (and epochal) technical change that occurred at Ford and the attitudes and be…
Intra-Industry Heterogeneity and the Great Depression
Reliance on a “representative firm” approach in studying industrial behavior during the Great Depression obscures economically interesting patterns. A newly discovered data source lets us form and study an establishment-level panel dataset on the motor vehicles industry, one of the largest in 1929. Substantial intraindustry heterogeneity led to large composition effects in employment, output, and productivity: the large number of plants that shut…
Making Cars and Making Money in the Interwar Automobile Industry
Many observers of the American automobile industry have focused on Ford's development of mass production shortly before the First World War; they have then moved to General Motors's success in the 1920s, usually attributing it to a marketing innovation, the introduction of the annual model change. This article argues that the emphasis on GM's marketing strategy is misplaced and that profound changes in the organization of production, exploiting t…
Against Whig History
By the end of the twentieth century, it had become clear that the grand synthesis laid out by Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., in The Visible Hand, Scale and Scope , and other writings was badly in need of revision. It was in need of revision because the type of enterprise that Chandler took to be the acme of capitalist economic organization–the large, vertically integrated, horizontally diversified, managerially directed corporation–was clearly in retre…
Wage Determination Theory and the Five-Dollar Day at Ford
This paper examines the five-dollar day compensation policy instituted by the Ford Motor Company in 1914 in light of recent developments in wage-determination theory. The new wage was above the opportunity cost of the labor employed. Yet various efficiency wage theories, by which high wages increase output, are shown to provide an implausible explanation. The particular (and epochal) technical change that occurred at Ford and the attitudes and be…
Real estate prices in Beijing, 1644 to 1840
The Teaching of Business History in the United States
Cet article précise les frontières entre l’histoire des entreprises et l’histoire économique. À partir de ce préalable épistémologique et conceptuel, il revient sur le contexte institutionnel qui, aux États-Unis, a vu se mettre en place les enseignements de l’une et de l’autre de ces disciplines. L’intérêt pour l’histoire économique dans les établissements où elle a été principalement enseignée a connu un déclin dans les décennies récentes, mais …
Business History and the Problem of Action
The problem of action is the problem of both identifying and explaining it. The two aspects are not as distinct as this formulation might suggest, and the present paper focuses on the first, bringing in only as much of the second as is absolutely necessary. (A companion paper focuses on the second in a similar way.) Because business history is for all practical purposes a history of organizations and because action in and by organizations general…
Introduction
This article celebrates the life, career, and intellectual contribution of Leslie Hannah, while also summarising the other papers of this festschrift. We discuss Hannah’s early life, the development of business history prior to the launch of the London School of Economics’ Business History Unit (BHU), together with Hannah’s contribution to business history research and disciplinary development during and after his time as BHU director. We conclud…
Wage Determination Theory and the Five-Dollar Day at Ford
This paper examines the five-dollar day compensation policy instituted by the Ford Motor Company in 1914 in light of recent developments in wage-determination theory. The new wage was above the opportunity cost of the labor employed. Yet various efficiency wage theories, by which high wages increase output, are shown to provide an implausible explanation. The particular (and epochal) technical change that occurred at Ford and the attitudes and be…
Intra-Industry Heterogeneity and the Great Depression
Reliance on a “representative firm” approach in studying industrial behavior during the Great Depression obscures economically interesting patterns. A newly discovered data source lets us form and study an establishment-level panel dataset on the motor vehicles industry, one of the largest in 1929. Substantial intraindustry heterogeneity led to large composition effects in employment, output, and productivity: the large number of plants that shut…
Making Cars and Making Money in the Interwar Automobile Industry
Many observers of the American automobile industry have focused on Ford's development of mass production shortly before the First World War; they have then moved to General Motors's success in the 1920s, usually attributing it to a marketing innovation, the introduction of the annual model change. This article argues that the emphasis on GM's marketing strategy is misplaced and that profound changes in the organization of production, exploiting t…
Inside the Business Enterprise
Coordination and Information
Coordination and Information
Case studies that examine how firms co-ordinate economic activity in the face of asymmetric information, information not equally available to all parties, are the focus of this volume. In an ideal world, the market would be the optimal provider of co-ordination, but in the real world of incomplete information, some activities are better coordinated in other ways. Divided into three parts, this book addresses co-ordination within firms, at the bor…
Session 7a
This paper is an effort to build on the essays collected in our three NBER conference volumes by offering a new synthesis of American business history. We move beyond the traditional markets versus hierarchies (or markets versus central planning) dichotomy and argue that one can observe in the cross-section of the economy at any moment in time a variety of coordination mechanisms in use, man of which do not fit neatly into these ideal types. We a…
Beyond Markets and Hierarchies
We sketch a new synthesis of American business history to replace (and subsume) that put forward by Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., most famously in his book The Visible Hand (1977). We see the broader subject as the history of the institutions of coordination in the economy, with the management of information and the addressing of problems of informational asymmetries representing central problems for firm-and relationship design. Our analysis emphasiz…
Against Whig History
By the end of the twentieth century, it had become clear that the grand synthesis laid out by Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., in The Visible Hand, Scale and Scope , and other writings was badly in need of revision. It was in need of revision because the type of enterprise that Chandler took to be the acme of capitalist economic organization–the large, vertically integrated, horizontally diversified, managerially directed corporation–was clearly in retre…
The Teaching of Business History in the United States
Cet article précise les frontières entre l’histoire des entreprises et l’histoire économique. À partir de ce préalable épistémologique et conceptuel, il revient sur le contexte institutionnel qui, aux États-Unis, a vu se mettre en place les enseignements de l’une et de l’autre de ces disciplines. L’intérêt pour l’histoire économique dans les établissements où elle a été principalement enseignée a connu un déclin dans les décennies récentes, mais …
The immaterial text
Le texte immatériel : la technologie numérique, l’accord Google livres et la distribution de la culture imprime aux États-Unis Quelle est la signification de l’entrée en 2004 de l’entreprise de sélection de l’information sur Internet Google dans la numérisation des contenus conservés par les principales bibliothèques de recherche ? S’agit-il d’un distributeur nouveau, immatériel, par rapport aux librairies et aux grands distributeurs classiques o…
Real estate prices in Beijing, 1644 to 1840
Introduction
This article celebrates the life, career, and intellectual contribution of Leslie Hannah, while also summarising the other papers of this festschrift. We discuss Hannah’s early life, the development of business history prior to the launch of the London School of Economics’ Business History Unit (BHU), together with Hannah’s contribution to business history research and disciplinary development during and after his time as BHU director. We conclud…
Hannah on ‘Hollywood history’
This article explores Leslie Hannah’s critique of the literature of international comparative business history including and deriving from Alfred Chandler’s Scale and Scope: The Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1990). This critique is in part empirical and in part deeper. Some of the key texts are published and more or less accessible but key elements remain unpublished (at least in English). The article …
Introduction to the Symposium
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Business History and the Problem of Action
The problem of action is the problem of both identifying and explaining it. The two aspects are not as distinct as this formulation might suggest, and the present paper focuses on the first, bringing in only as much of the second as is absolutely necessary. (A companion paper focuses on the second in a similar way.) Because business history is for all practical purposes a history of organizations and because action in and by organizations general…
Roundtable Review
In 2023, Princeton University Press published Richard Langlois’s The Corporation and the Twentieth Century: The History of American Business Enterprise. It is a book of comparable mass to Alfred Chandler’s 1977 The Visible Hand and equally ambitious. 1 The erudition is vast. (The bibliography alone runs 78 closely-printed pages. There are 122 pages of equally closely-printed footnotes to the 522-page main text whose own font is not large.) A prod…
Political science (10 works) · Computer Science (9 works) · Business (7 works) · Economics (7 works) · Sociology (6 works) · Business history (4 works) · Economic history (4 works) · Economic Theory and Institutions (4 works) · Historical Economic and Social Studies (4 works) · History (4 works)