IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/jechis/v77y2017i04p1048-1082_00.html

World War II and the Industrialization of the American South

Author

Listed:
  • Jaworski, Taylor

Abstract

When private incentives are insufficient, a big push by government may lead to industrialization. This article uses mobilization for WWII to test the big push hypothesis in the context of postwar industrialization in the American South. Specifically, I investigate the role of capital deepening at the county level using newly assembled data on the location and value of wartime investment. Despite a boom in manufacturing activity during the war, the evidence is not consistent with differential postwar growth in counties that received more investment. This does not rule out positive effects of mobilization on firms or sectors, but a decisive role for wartime capital deepening in the South's postwar industrial development should be viewed more skeptically.

Suggested Citation

  • Jaworski, Taylor, 2017. "World War II and the Industrialization of the American South," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 77(4), pages 1048-1082, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jechis:v:77:y:2017:i:04:p:1048-1082_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0022050717000791/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. repec:osf:socarx:trjfz_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Ethan Ilzetzki, 2024. "Learning by Necessity: Government Demand, Capacity Constraints, and Productivity Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 114(8), pages 2436-2471, August.
    3. John Fitzgerald & Se n Kenny & Alexandra Lopez Cermeno, 2021. "Household Behaviour in Ireland, Sweden, the US and the UK Under Rationing," Trinity Economics Papers tep1221, Trinity College Dublin, Department of Economics.
    4. Ahmed S. Rahman, 2020. "Officer retention and military spending: the rise of the military‐industrial complex during the Second World War," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 73(4), pages 1074-1096, November.
    5. Lleras-Muney, Adriana & Morgan, Tommy & Price, Joseph & Wygal, William, 2025. "The effect of World War II spending and army service on the lifespan of the Black population," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    6. Brunet, Gillian & Hilt, Eric & Jaremski, Matthew, 2025. "War bonds and household saving in WWII," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    7. Greenspon, Jacob & Hanson, Gordon, 2025. "Local energy access and industry specialization: Evidence from World War II emergency pipelines," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    8. Ufuk Akcigit & John Grigsby & Tom Nicholas, 2017. "The Rise of American Ingenuity: Innovation and Inventors of the Golden Age," Working Papers 2017-6, Princeton University. Economics Department..
    9. Jung, Yeonha, 2018. "The Legacy of King Cotton: Agricultural Patterns and the Quality of Structural Change," SocArXiv trjfz, Center for Open Science.
    10. Jung, Yeonha, 2020. "The long reach of cotton in the US South: Tenant farming, mechanization, and low-skill manufacturing," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    11. Jaworski, Taylor & Yang, Dongkyu, 2025. "Did war mobilization cause aggregate and regional growth?," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    12. Karl Skogstad & Robert J. Petrunia, 2019. "The impact of labour policies on Canadian gold mines in World War II," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 13(2), pages 163-200, May.
    13. Bose, Gautam & Jain, Tarun & Walker, Sarah, 2022. "Women’s labor force participation and household technology adoption," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    14. Anna Aizer & Ryan Boone & Adriana Lleras-Muney & Jonathan Vogel, 2020. "Discrimination and Racial Disparities in Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence from WWII," NBER Working Papers 27689, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Aleksandar Keseljevic & Stefan Nikolic & Rok Spruk, 2025. "Ethnic Conflicts, Civil War and Economic Growth: Region-Level Evidence from former Yugoslavia," Papers 2505.02431, arXiv.org.
    16. Andrew Bossie, 2020. "Monetary and fiscal interactions in the USA during the 1940s," Cliometrica, Journal of Historical Economics and Econometric History, Association Française de Cliométrie (AFC), vol. 14(1), pages 61-103, January.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • N12 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - U.S.; Canada: 1913-

    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:cup:jechis:v:77:y:2017:i:04:p:1048-1082_00. 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: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/jeh .

    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.