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This paper examines the Chicago sociologist William F. Ogburn's (1886–1959) views about technological unemployment, which were intimately connected to his analysis of the social impacts of technological developments and resulting social problems due to cultural lag. We trace the development of his views as seen through his well‐known 1922 book, Social Change with Respect to Culture and Original Nature, his important contributions to the President's Research Committee on Social Trends (1933), and his lesser‐known pamphlets designed for a broader audience—Living with Machines (1933), You and Machines (1934), and Machines and Tomorrow's World (1938). He used these pamphlets to educate the public about the dangers of new machines and technological unemployment. In doing so, he drew upon sociological analysis in his professional scholarly writings and his long‐standing personal interests in social betterment and social reform. Our analysis also calls into question the adequacy of existing scholarship on Ogburn that has emphasized his commitment to a statistical, dispassionate, and "objectivist" approach to social science research. We call for a revised, richer, and more complex view of Ogburn's work and legacy as one of the nation's leading social scientists during the first half of the 20th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I explore the impact of the Production Credit Associations (PCAs), an arm of the early Farm Credit System, on agricultural yield and input use following the farm crisis of the 1920s. Like many low‐ and middle‐income countries today, farmers in the early 20th century United States found it difficult to access credit. The PCAs were established in 1933 and significantly increased the supply of short‐term credit available to farmers. Using distance from the serving PCA as a proxy for credit access, I find that counties within 30 km of a PCA had 7% to 14% higher crop revenue per acre and 9% higher corn yields than counties more than 60 km from a PCA. These areas also had a small but statistically significant increase in the use of tractors (1% to 2%). These results provide crucial evidence of the impact of government‐sponsored enterprises on the early US agricultural economy and its use as a cost‐effective tool to address market frictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is clear that we are facing a tipping point in global politics, climate change and social justice. Much has been trumpeted under the banner of the 'Green New Deal'. Billy Fleming, the Wilks Family Director of the Ian L McHarg Center at the Weitzman School of Design, University of Pennsylvania, describes the history and various approaches encompassed within this ubiquitous epithet and how designers can get involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing historiography on Puerto Rico's agrarian reform programme in the early 1940s fails to explain why the reform resulted in the nationalization of sugar cane plantations and the formation of "Proportional Profit Farms" rather than land redistribution. This analysis examines the interplay between the New Deal and Puerto Rican political forces in the 1930s to help answer this question. It concludes that land redistribution was preferred among local forces and that the Proportional Profit Farms were a result of federal intervention by the New Deal, embodied most clearly in the figure of Rexford Tugwell, Puerto Rico's appointed governor from 1941 to 1946. This intervention calls for a re‐examination of the New Deal's role in Puerto Rico's long‐term economic development in the 20th century, particularly in laying down a model of dependent development and industrialization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although some regard the New Deal of the 1930s as exemplifying an aggressive fiscal and monetary response to a severe economic crisis, the US fiscal and monetary policy responses to the COVID‐19 crisis have actually been far more substantial – and, so far, much more effective in reviving aggregate spending. Although many fear that these responses, and the large‐scale increase in bank reserves especially, must eventually cause unwanted inflation, the concurrent sharp decline in money's velocity has thus far more than offset any inflationary effects of money growth, while forward bond prices reflect a general belief that inflation will remain below 2 per cent for at least another decade. Notwithstanding the growth of the Fed's balance sheet, Fed authorities can always check inflation by sufficiently raising the interest return on bank reserves. Nonetheless, recent developments have heightened the risk of 'fiscal dominance' of monetary policy at some point in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]