IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/usi/wpaper/783.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Wesley Clair Mitchell and the “Illiberal Reformers”: A Documentary Note

Author

Listed:
  • Luca fiorito
  • Massimiliano Vatiero

Abstract

The aim of this note is to assess whether Wesley Clair Mitchell as a reformer ever expressed concern over the biological quality of individuals and whether he did somehow share the Progressive Era faith in eugenics as an instrument for improving American society’s health, welfare, and morals. Using both published and unpublished evidence, we argue that, as an institutionalist, Mitchell was free from the paternalistic and antidemocratic bent of the progressives described by Leonard and was ready to accept the new faith in the plasticity of human nature that sustained interwar reformism. At the same time, as someone who had been exposed to the Progressive Era cultural milieu, he could not completely divorce himself from the earlier decades preoccupations over the biological quality of individuals.

Suggested Citation

  • Luca fiorito & Massimiliano Vatiero, 2018. "Wesley Clair Mitchell and the “Illiberal Reformers”: A Documentary Note," Department of Economics University of Siena 783, Department of Economics, University of Siena.
    • Handle: RePEc:usi:wpaper:783
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://repec.deps.unisi.it/quaderni/783.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Arthur F. Burns, 1952. "Wesley Clair Mitchell: The Economic Scientist," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number burn52-1, January.
    2. Harry Jerome, 1926. "Migration and Business Cycles," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number jero26-1, January.
    3. Asso, Pier Francesco & Fiorito, Luca, 2004. "Human Nature and Economic Institutions: Instinct Psychology, Behaviorism, and the Development of American Institutionalism," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Cambridge University Press, vol. 26(4), pages 445-477, December.
    4. Wesley C. Mitchell, 1896. "The Quantity Theory of the Value of Money," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(2), pages 139-139.
    5. Walter F. Willcox, 1929. "International Migrations, Volume I: Statistics," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number fere29-1, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Greenwood, Michael J. & Ward, Zachary, 2015. "Immigration quotas, World War I, and emigrant flows from the United States in the early 20th century," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 76-96.
    2. Timothy J. Hatton, 2010. "The Cliometrics Of International Migration: A Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(5), pages 941-969, December.
    3. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/f4rshpf3v1umfa09lat1n0o44 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/f4rshpf3v1umfa09lat1n0o44 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Yannay Spitzer & Gaspare Tortorici & Ariell Zimran, 2020. "International Migration Responses to Modern Europe’s Most Destructive Earthquake: Messina and Reggio Calabria, 1908," NBER Working Papers 27506, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/f4rshpf3v1umfa09lat1n0o44 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Bandiera, Oriana & Rasul, Imran & Viarengo, Martina, 2013. "The Making of Modern America: Migratory Flows in the Age of Mass Migration," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 23-47.
    8. Biavaschi, Costanza, 2013. "Fifty Years of Compositional Changes in U.S. Out-Migration, 1908-1957," IZA Discussion Papers 7258, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Spitzer, Yannay & Tortorici, Gaspare & Zimran, Ariell, 2020. "International Migration Responses to Natural Disasters: Evidence from Modern Europe’s Deadliest Earthquake," CEPR Discussion Papers 15008, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/f4rshpf3v1umfa09lat1n0o44 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Eriksson, Katherine & Alsan, Marcella & Niemesh, Gregory T., 2020. "Understanding the Success of the Know-Nothing Party," CEPR Discussion Papers 15562, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Tiia-Lotta Pekkanen, 2021. "Institutions and Agency in the Sustainability of Day-to-Day Consumption Practices: An Institutional Ethnographic Study," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 168(2), pages 241-260, January.
    13. Timothy J. Hatton & Zachary Ward, 2024. "International Migration in the Atlantic Economy 1850–1940," Springer Books, in: Claude Diebolt & Michael Haupert (ed.), Handbook of Cliometrics, edition 3, pages 507-535, Springer.
    14. Anuradha Roy & Ricardo Leiva, 2008. "Testing of a Structures Covariance Matrix for Three-Level Repeated Measures Data," Working Papers 0037, College of Business, University of Texas at San Antonio.
    15. Tabellini, Marco, 2020. "Racial Heterogeneity and Local Government Finances: Evidence from the Great Migration," CEPR Discussion Papers 14319, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    16. Jeff E. Biddle, 2014. "Retrospectives: The Cyclical Behavior of Labor Productivity and the Emergence of the Labor Hoarding Concept," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 28(2), pages 197-212, Spring.
    17. Abramitzky, Ran & Boustan, Leah Platt & Eriksson, Katherine, 2013. "Have the poor always been less likely to migrate? Evidence from inheritance practices during the age of mass migration," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 2-14.
    18. Davanzati, Guglielmo Forges, 2018. "Structural change driven by institutions: Thorstein veblen revised," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 105-110.
    19. Joel Perlmann, 2006. "The Local Geographic Origins of Russian-Jewish Immigrants, Circa 1900," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_465, Levy Economics Institute.
    20. Escamilla Guerrero, David & Lepistö, Miko & Minns, Chris, 2022. "Explaining gender differences in migrant sorting: evidence from Canada-US migration," Economic History Working Papers 117260, London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History.
    21. Lance Girton & Don E. Roper, 1977. "J. Laurence Laughlin and the quantity theory of money," International Finance Discussion Papers 103, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    22. J. Ulyses Balderas & Michael Greenwood, 2010. "From Europe to the Americas: a comparative panel-data analysis of migration to Argentina, Brazil, and the United States, 1870–1910," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 23(4), pages 1301-1318, September.
    23. Howard Sherman, 2001. "The Business Cycle Theory of Wesley Mitchell," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(1), pages 85-97, March.
    24. Agnieszka Fihel & Anna Janicka & Marek Okólski, 2023. "Predicting a Migration Transition in Poland and its Implications for Population Ageing," Post-Print hal-04488199, HAL.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    American Progressive Era; Mitchell; Wesley Clair; Immigration; Race; Eugenics;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B1 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought through 1925
    • B15 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought through 1925 - - - Historical; Institutional; Evolutionary

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:usi:wpaper:783. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Fabrizio Becatti (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/desieit.html .

    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.