Shawn Kantor
Biographic Data
| ID | 3822922 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Shawn Kantor |
| GIVEN NAMES | Shawn |
| FAMILY NAME | Kantor |
| SIGNATURE | KANTOR S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Arizona |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 26 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 124 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 26 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1991 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2018 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Research Proximity and Productivity: Long-Term Evidence from Agriculture
We use the late nineteenth-century establishment of agricultural experiment stations at preexisting land-grant colleges across the United States to estimate the importance of proximity to research for productivity growth. Our analysis reveals that proximity to newly opened permanent stations affected land productivity for about 20 years and then subsequently declined until becoming largely absent today. We conclude that spatial frictions substant…
Summaries of Doctoral Dissertations
I was honored that Lee Alston asked me to be the convener for the Nevins Prize Competition this year. There were close to a dozen submissions spanning a
Knowledge Spillovers from Research Universities: Evidence from Endowment Value Shocks
We estimate the local spillovers from research university activity in a sample of urban counties. Our approach uses the interaction between university endowment values and stock market shocks over time for identification. We find statistically significant local spillover effects from university activity. The effects are significantly larger when local universities are more research intensive or local firms are technologically close to universitie…
Did the New Deal solidify the 1932 Democratic realignment
Agricultural policy, migration, and malaria in the United States in the 1930s
The Dynamics of Relief Spending and the Private Urban Labor Market During the New Deal
We examine the dynamic relationships between relief spending and local private labor markets using a panel data set of relief, private employment, and private earnings. Positive shocks to relief during the First New Deal were followed by increased private employment and earnings, consistent with demand stimulus in that period. On the other hand, increases in work relief spending during the Second New Deal were followed by decreased employment and…
Migration Creation, Diversion, and Retention: New Deal Grants and Migration: 1935-1940
During the 1930s the federal government embarked upon an ambitious series of grant programs designed to counteract the Great Depression. The amounts distributed varied widely across the country and potentially contributed to population shifts. We estimate an aggregate discrete choice model, in which household heads choose among 466 economic subregions. The structural model allows us to decompose the effects of program spending on migration into t…
Births, Deaths, and New Deal Relief during the Great Depression
The article examines the impact of New Deal relief programs on infant mortality, non-infant mortality, and general fertility rates in major U.S. cities between 1929 and 1940. Effects are estimated using a variety of specifications and techniques for a panel of 114 cities that reported information on relief spending between 1929 and 1940. The significant rise in relief spending during the New Deal contributed to reductions in infant mortality, sui…
The impact of New Deal expenditures on mobility during the Great Depression
Using county-level data on federal New Deal expenditures on public works and relief and Agricultural Adjustment Administration payments to farmers, this paper empirically examines the New Deal’s impact on inter-county migration from 1930 to 1940. We construct a net-migration measure for each county as the difference between the Census’s reported population change from 1930 to 1940 and the natural increase in population (births minus infant deaths…
Did New Deal Grant Programs Stimulate Local Economies? A Study of Federal Grants and Retail Sales During the Great Depression
Using data on New Deal grants to each U.S. county from 1933 to 1939, we estimate how relief and public works spending and payments to farmers through the Agricultural Adjustment Administration influenced retail consumption. On a per capita basis, we find that an additional dollar of public works and relief spending was associated with a 44 cent increase in 1939 retail sales. In contrast, the AAA seems to have had a negative effect on retail sales…
Can the New Deal’s three Rs be rehabilitated? A program-by-program, county-by-county analysis
The Impact of the New Deal on Black and White Infant Mortality in the South
A Prelude to the Welfare State: The Origin of Workers' Compensation
Politics and Property Rights: The Closing of the Open Range in the Postbellum South
After the American Civil War, agricultural reformers in the South called for an end to unrestricted grazing of livestock on unfenced land. They advocated the stock law, which required livestock owners to fence in their animals, arguing that the existing system (in which farmers built protective fences around crops) was outdated and inhibited economic growth. The reformers steadily won their battles, and by the end of the century the range was on …
Politics and Property Rights: The Closing of the Open Range in the Postbellum South
Journal Article Politics and Property Rights: The Closing of the Open Range in the Postbellum South. By Shawn Everett Kantor. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. x, 187 pp. Cloth, $45.00, ISBN 0-226-42375-1. Paper, $18.00, ISBN 0-226-42377-8.) Get access Jonathan M. Bryant Jonathan M. Bryant Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, Georgia Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American Histor…
The Political Economy of Workers' Compensation Benefit Levels, 1910–1930
Precautionary Saving, Insurance, and the Origins of Workers' Compensation
In this article, the authors test whether the introduction of social insurance has led to a reduction in private insurance purchases and precautionary saving by examining the introduction of workers' compensation. Their empirical analysis is based on the financial decisions of over 7,000 households surveyed for the 1917-19 Bureau of Labor Statistics cost-of-living study. The authors find that the presence of workers' compensation at least partial…
The Durable Experiment: State Insurance of Workers' Compensation Risk in the Early Twentieth Century
In the early 1910s state governments debated the private versus public underwriting of workers' compensation risk. The choices they made established the existing system today and set the stage for later debates over the government's underwriting of unemployment, health, and disability risks. This article offers both quantitative and case-study analyses of states' original choices between public and private insurance. Monopoly state funds were ado…
Supplanting the Roots of Southern Populism: The Contours of Political Protest in the Georgia Hills
Steven Hahn, in his influential book The Roots of Southern Populism , viewed Populism in the Georgia Up-country as the culmination of a long-standing protest against the economic and social effects of commercialization in regions that were relatively isolated prior to the Civil War. In developing his explanation for the rise of Populism, Hahn emphasized the close relationship between voting for Populism in the 1890s and voting to keep the range o…
The Political Economy of Coalition-Formation: The Case of Livestock Enclosure in the Postbellum South
Economic behavior and institutions
Common Sense or Commonwealth? The Fence Law and Institutional Change in the Postbellum South
Shawn Everett Kantor, J. Morgan Kousser, Common Sense or Commonwealth? The Fence Law and Institutional Change in the Postbellum South, The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 59, No. 2 (May, 1993), pp. 201-242
A Rejoinder: Two Visions of History
Square Deal” or Raw Deal? Market Compensation for Workplace Disamenities, 1884–1903
Early twentieth-century social reformers claimed that public insurance was necessary because employers ignored the financial needs of their unemployed, injured, or ill workers. Reformers dismissed the idea that competition in the labor market would boost the wages of workers who faced greater chances of job-related financial distress. This article reports a test of the compensating-wage-difference hypothesis on wage samples of men, women, and chi…
Property Rights and the Dynamics of Institutional Change: The Closing of the Georgia Open Range, 1870-1900
The traditional agricultural practice in Georgia from colonial times until after the Civil War allowed animals to roam the countryside freely and forced farmers to erect fences around their growing crops. All unfenced land, therefore, was considered common pasture that could be used by anyone. After the Civil War there was a concerted effort to eradicate the open range policy and to force all livestock owners to fence in their animals instead of …
Did New Deal Grant Programs Stimulate Local Economies? A Study of Federal Grants and Retail Sales During the Great Depression
Using data on New Deal grants to each U.S. county from 1933 to 1939, we estimate how relief and public works spending and payments to farmers through the Agricultural Adjustment Administration influenced retail consumption. On a per capita basis, we find that an additional dollar of public works and relief spending was associated with a 44 cent increase in 1939 retail sales. In contrast, the AAA seems to have had a negative effect on retail sales…
The impact of New Deal expenditures on mobility during the Great Depression
Using county-level data on federal New Deal expenditures on public works and relief and Agricultural Adjustment Administration payments to farmers, this paper empirically examines the New Deal’s impact on inter-county migration from 1930 to 1940. We construct a net-migration measure for each county as the difference between the Census’s reported population change from 1930 to 1940 and the natural increase in population (births minus infant deaths…
Precautionary Saving, Insurance, and the Origins of Workers' Compensation
In this article, the authors test whether the introduction of social insurance has led to a reduction in private insurance purchases and precautionary saving by examining the introduction of workers' compensation. Their empirical analysis is based on the financial decisions of over 7,000 households surveyed for the 1917-19 Bureau of Labor Statistics cost-of-living study. The authors find that the presence of workers' compensation at least partial…
Research Proximity and Productivity: Long-Term Evidence from Agriculture
We use the late nineteenth-century establishment of agricultural experiment stations at preexisting land-grant colleges across the United States to estimate the importance of proximity to research for productivity growth. Our analysis reveals that proximity to newly opened permanent stations affected land productivity for about 20 years and then subsequently declined until becoming largely absent today. We conclude that spatial frictions substant…
The Durable Experiment: State Insurance of Workers' Compensation Risk in the Early Twentieth Century
In the early 1910s state governments debated the private versus public underwriting of workers' compensation risk. The choices they made established the existing system today and set the stage for later debates over the government's underwriting of unemployment, health, and disability risks. This article offers both quantitative and case-study analyses of states' original choices between public and private insurance. Monopoly state funds were ado…
Square Deal” or Raw Deal? Market Compensation for Workplace Disamenities, 1884–1903
Early twentieth-century social reformers claimed that public insurance was necessary because employers ignored the financial needs of their unemployed, injured, or ill workers. Reformers dismissed the idea that competition in the labor market would boost the wages of workers who faced greater chances of job-related financial distress. This article reports a test of the compensating-wage-difference hypothesis on wage samples of men, women, and chi…
The Dynamics of Relief Spending and the Private Urban Labor Market During the New Deal
We examine the dynamic relationships between relief spending and local private labor markets using a panel data set of relief, private employment, and private earnings. Positive shocks to relief during the First New Deal were followed by increased private employment and earnings, consistent with demand stimulus in that period. On the other hand, increases in work relief spending during the Second New Deal were followed by decreased employment and…
The Impact of the New Deal on Black and White Infant Mortality in the South
The Political Economy of Workers' Compensation Benefit Levels, 1910–1930
Did the New Deal solidify the 1932 Democratic realignment
Agricultural policy, migration, and malaria in the United States in the 1930s
Politics and Property Rights: The Closing of the Open Range in the Postbellum South
Journal Article Politics and Property Rights: The Closing of the Open Range in the Postbellum South. By Shawn Everett Kantor. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. x, 187 pp. Cloth, $45.00, ISBN 0-226-42375-1. Paper, $18.00, ISBN 0-226-42377-8.) Get access Jonathan M. Bryant Jonathan M. Bryant Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, Georgia Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American Histor…
Razorbacks, Ticky Cows, and the Closing of the Georgia Open Range: The Dynamics of Institutional Change Uncovered
This article attempts to explain why the adoption of potentially productive institutions is delayed and why inefficient ones persist by exploring the dynamics of institutional change in a particular historical case—the closing of the Georgia open range in the late nineteenth century. A closed range policy would have generated net benefits for specific regions of Georgia, but distributional conflicts, coupled with high transaction costs, made a vo…
Politics and Property Rights: The Closing of the Open Range in the Postbellum South
After the American Civil War, agricultural reformers in the South called for an end to unrestricted grazing of livestock on unfenced land. They advocated the stock law, which required livestock owners to fence in their animals, arguing that the existing system (in which farmers built protective fences around crops) was outdated and inhibited economic growth. The reformers steadily won their battles, and by the end of the century the range was on …
Common Sense or Commonwealth? The Fence Law and Institutional Change in the Postbellum South
Shawn Everett Kantor, J. Morgan Kousser, Common Sense or Commonwealth? The Fence Law and Institutional Change in the Postbellum South, The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 59, No. 2 (May, 1993), pp. 201-242
Razorbacks, Ticky Cows, and the Closing of the Georgia Open Range: The Dynamics of Institutional Change Uncovered
This article attempts to explain why the adoption of potentially productive institutions is delayed and why inefficient ones persist by exploring the dynamics of institutional change in a particular historical case—the closing of the Georgia open range in the late nineteenth century. A closed range policy would have generated net benefits for specific regions of Georgia, but distributional conflicts, coupled with high transaction costs, made a vo…
Square Deal” or Raw Deal? Market Compensation for Workplace Disamenities, 1884–1903
Early twentieth-century social reformers claimed that public insurance was necessary because employers ignored the financial needs of their unemployed, injured, or ill workers. Reformers dismissed the idea that competition in the labor market would boost the wages of workers who faced greater chances of job-related financial distress. This article reports a test of the compensating-wage-difference hypothesis on wage samples of men, women, and chi…
Property Rights and the Dynamics of Institutional Change: The Closing of the Georgia Open Range, 1870-1900
The traditional agricultural practice in Georgia from colonial times until after the Civil War allowed animals to roam the countryside freely and forced farmers to erect fences around their growing crops. All unfenced land, therefore, was considered common pasture that could be used by anyone. After the Civil War there was a concerted effort to eradicate the open range policy and to force all livestock owners to fence in their animals instead of …
Economic behavior and institutions
Common Sense or Commonwealth? The Fence Law and Institutional Change in the Postbellum South
Shawn Everett Kantor, J. Morgan Kousser, Common Sense or Commonwealth? The Fence Law and Institutional Change in the Postbellum South, The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 59, No. 2 (May, 1993), pp. 201-242
A Rejoinder: Two Visions of History
Supplanting the Roots of Southern Populism: The Contours of Political Protest in the Georgia Hills
Steven Hahn, in his influential book The Roots of Southern Populism , viewed Populism in the Georgia Up-country as the culmination of a long-standing protest against the economic and social effects of commercialization in regions that were relatively isolated prior to the Civil War. In developing his explanation for the rise of Populism, Hahn emphasized the close relationship between voting for Populism in the 1890s and voting to keep the range o…
The Political Economy of Coalition-Formation: The Case of Livestock Enclosure in the Postbellum South
Precautionary Saving, Insurance, and the Origins of Workers' Compensation
In this article, the authors test whether the introduction of social insurance has led to a reduction in private insurance purchases and precautionary saving by examining the introduction of workers' compensation. Their empirical analysis is based on the financial decisions of over 7,000 households surveyed for the 1917-19 Bureau of Labor Statistics cost-of-living study. The authors find that the presence of workers' compensation at least partial…
The Durable Experiment: State Insurance of Workers' Compensation Risk in the Early Twentieth Century
In the early 1910s state governments debated the private versus public underwriting of workers' compensation risk. The choices they made established the existing system today and set the stage for later debates over the government's underwriting of unemployment, health, and disability risks. This article offers both quantitative and case-study analyses of states' original choices between public and private insurance. Monopoly state funds were ado…
The Political Economy of Workers' Compensation Benefit Levels, 1910–1930
Politics and Property Rights: The Closing of the Open Range in the Postbellum South
After the American Civil War, agricultural reformers in the South called for an end to unrestricted grazing of livestock on unfenced land. They advocated the stock law, which required livestock owners to fence in their animals, arguing that the existing system (in which farmers built protective fences around crops) was outdated and inhibited economic growth. The reformers steadily won their battles, and by the end of the century the range was on …
Politics and Property Rights: The Closing of the Open Range in the Postbellum South
Journal Article Politics and Property Rights: The Closing of the Open Range in the Postbellum South. By Shawn Everett Kantor. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. x, 187 pp. Cloth, $45.00, ISBN 0-226-42375-1. Paper, $18.00, ISBN 0-226-42377-8.) Get access Jonathan M. Bryant Jonathan M. Bryant Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, Georgia Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American Histor…
The Impact of the New Deal on Black and White Infant Mortality in the South
A Prelude to the Welfare State: The Origin of Workers' Compensation
Can the New Deal’s three Rs be rehabilitated? A program-by-program, county-by-county analysis
Did New Deal Grant Programs Stimulate Local Economies? A Study of Federal Grants and Retail Sales During the Great Depression
Using data on New Deal grants to each U.S. county from 1933 to 1939, we estimate how relief and public works spending and payments to farmers through the Agricultural Adjustment Administration influenced retail consumption. On a per capita basis, we find that an additional dollar of public works and relief spending was associated with a 44 cent increase in 1939 retail sales. In contrast, the AAA seems to have had a negative effect on retail sales…
The impact of New Deal expenditures on mobility during the Great Depression
Using county-level data on federal New Deal expenditures on public works and relief and Agricultural Adjustment Administration payments to farmers, this paper empirically examines the New Deal’s impact on inter-county migration from 1930 to 1940. We construct a net-migration measure for each county as the difference between the Census’s reported population change from 1930 to 1940 and the natural increase in population (births minus infant deaths…
Migration Creation, Diversion, and Retention: New Deal Grants and Migration: 1935-1940
During the 1930s the federal government embarked upon an ambitious series of grant programs designed to counteract the Great Depression. The amounts distributed varied widely across the country and potentially contributed to population shifts. We estimate an aggregate discrete choice model, in which household heads choose among 466 economic subregions. The structural model allows us to decompose the effects of program spending on migration into t…
Births, Deaths, and New Deal Relief during the Great Depression
The article examines the impact of New Deal relief programs on infant mortality, non-infant mortality, and general fertility rates in major U.S. cities between 1929 and 1940. Effects are estimated using a variety of specifications and techniques for a panel of 114 cities that reported information on relief spending between 1929 and 1940. The significant rise in relief spending during the New Deal contributed to reductions in infant mortality, sui…
The Dynamics of Relief Spending and the Private Urban Labor Market During the New Deal
We examine the dynamic relationships between relief spending and local private labor markets using a panel data set of relief, private employment, and private earnings. Positive shocks to relief during the First New Deal were followed by increased private employment and earnings, consistent with demand stimulus in that period. On the other hand, increases in work relief spending during the Second New Deal were followed by decreased employment and…
Agricultural policy, migration, and malaria in the United States in the 1930s
Did the New Deal solidify the 1932 Democratic realignment
Knowledge Spillovers from Research Universities: Evidence from Endowment Value Shocks
We estimate the local spillovers from research university activity in a sample of urban counties. Our approach uses the interaction between university endowment values and stock market shocks over time for identification. We find statistically significant local spillover effects from university activity. The effects are significantly larger when local universities are more research intensive or local firms are technologically close to universitie…
Summaries of Doctoral Dissertations
I was honored that Lee Alston asked me to be the convener for the Nevins Prize Competition this year. There were close to a dozen submissions spanning a
Economics (20 works) · Political science (16 works) · Law (13 works) · Law (9 works) · Politics (9 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Economic growth (7 works) · Demographic economics (6 works) · Geography (6 works) · American History and Culture (5 works)