IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/hop/hopeec/v49y2017i1p31-58.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The (Rail)Road to Lochner: Reproduction Cost and the Gilded Age Controversy Over Rate Regulation

Author

Listed:
  • Nicola Giocoli

Abstract

The controversy over railroad rates regulation was a fundamental component of the jurisprudential trajectory that culminated in Lochner v. New York (1905) and the so-called laissez-faire era of U.S. constitutional law. Constitutional protection of property required that regulation preserve the value of the regulated business. This article builds on Siegel (1984) to argue that, by selecting, as in Smyth v. Ames (1898), reproduction cost as the correct technique to calculate the value of a railway, the US Supreme Court retained its allegiance to the fundamental tenets of classical political economy even in a period of massive economic transformation, when classical analysis was widely deemed unable to account for the new reality of US industrial life.

Suggested Citation

  • Nicola Giocoli, 2017. "The (Rail)Road to Lochner: Reproduction Cost and the Gilded Age Controversy Over Rate Regulation," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 49(1), pages 31-58, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:hop:hopeec:v:49:y:2017:i:1:p:31-58
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi-org.proxy.lib.duke.edu/10.1215/00182702-3777146
    File Function: link to full text
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hop:hopeec:v:49:y:2017:i:1:p:31-58. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Center for the History of Political Economy Webmaster (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.dukeupress.edu/Catalog/ViewProduct.php?viewby=journal&productid=45614 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.