1st Exam Review Flashcards
How were property rights first established in the California gold fields after the discovery of gold in 1848? (Reading Question)
Property rights were established by the miners themselves at meetings they held.
According to the text the main point of the Suffolk System of New England was that _________. (Reading Question)
all banks were forced to redeem their notes in gold or silver in Boston at the Suffolk Bank
Consider the following table which shows values of the stock of money in 1861, the beginning of the Civil War, and in 1865, the end of the War. The column for the North is correct. Choose the correct column for the South.
(Hint: The idea is not to remember the exact numbers. In fact, in class I showed you index numbers. The point of the question is that only one pair of numbers is consistent with the broad outline I sketched of Southern finance.)
column d
Consider the following table. It shows the annual rate of growth of the manufacturing sector in the United States before and after the Civil War. Which column has the right figures?
(Hint: You don’t have to know the exact figures, just the idea behind the story I told you in the lecture.)
column d
When slaves were emancipated in New Jersey and other Northern States, who provided some compensation for the slave owners for the loss of their future profits? (Lecture and Reading Question)
The slaves themselves.
What was the leading commodity export by value of the American colonies in the late colonial period? What commodity was in second place? (Reading Question)
tobacco, bread and flour
Consider the following chart which shows real per capita incomes in 1800, shortly after the American Revolution. Which countries are represented by the two highest bars?
Netherlands, United Kingdom
After weighing the costs and benefits of the Navigation Acts and other parts of the old colonial policy, the lecture and the text concluded that these restrictions __________.
imposed only a small net burden on the colonies as a whole, one too small to push people toward Revolution
In class I argued that poor Irish immigrants to the United States stood to ______ economically if the United States won its freedom from England mainly because _____.
gain, restrictions on western settlement would be removed
The “safety valve” theory, as applied in nineteenth century America, refers to the idea that __________.
there was less labor unrest in America compared with Europe because abundant western land created economic opportunities for unemployed factory workers to move west
When economic historian Albert Fishlow examined the profits of the of the Midwestern railroads built before the Civil War he found that profits were _____ when the railroads opened for business and that the profits then _____ over time.
high, fell
The settlement of the Midwest (Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, and Iowa) before the Civil War occurred in waves driven, according to economic historian Douglas North, by __________.
prices of agricultural products, particularly corn and hogs
In the colonial period the unit of account was _____, and the medium of exchange was _____.
the British pound, the Spanish peso
Consider the following supply and demand diagram which shows a country on a gold standard. As the economy grows we can expect the Demand (D) to shift to the _____ and the price level to ______.
right, fall
NOTE: MoneySupply/priceLevel = real price
Of the following, which does the modern consensus among economic historians consider a major cause of the Jacksonian inflation?
The growth of opium addiction in China
This famous Mercantilist wrote the first textbook on Economics.
Sir James Steuart
This famous frontiersman became a U.S. Congressman and advocated for “squatter’s rights.”
Davy Crockett
This famous statesman wanted the United States to become a great commercial and industrial nation.
Alexander Hamilton
This famous U.S. Senator told the Senate that the North dared not make war on the South because “Cotton is King.”
James Henry Hammond
This famous statesman wanted the United States to become a great agricultural nation.
Thomas Jefferson
When the British ship captain asked this American if he wished to surrender, he replied, “I have not yet begun to fight.”
John Paul Jones
(Think of it like John Bones Jones who fights)
Newspaper editor and politician who is credited with saying “Go West Young Man and Grow Up with the Country.”
Horace Greeley
In class I argued that there were two reasons why Alexander Hamilton thought that a bimetallic (gold and silver) standard would be a good idea. What were they?
- Gold for large transactions; silver for small transactions
- Stable price level or prevent deflation
