The price of progress

by R. Rudy Higgens-Evenson

"Between the Civil War and the Great Depression, twin revolutions swept through American business and government. In business, large corporations came to dominate entire sectors and markets. In government, new services and agencies, especially at the city and state levels, sprang up to ameliorate a broad spectrum of social problems. In The Price of Progress, R. Rudy Higgens-Evenson offers a fresh analysis of the relationship between those two revolutions.". "Using previously unexploited data from the annual reports of state treasurers and comptrollers, he provides a detailed, empirical assessment of the goods and services provided to citizens, as well as the resources extracted from them, by state governments during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. Focusing on New York, Massachusetts, California, and Kansas, but also including data on thirteen other states, his comparative study suggests that tax policies designed to finance new and innovative government services led to the emergenc