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FIND POSTS BY CATEGORY CATEGORIES Basic Concepts and Theory Market Behavior and Structure Market Dynamics and Information:  How Markets Work The Industrial Revolution in England American Economic History American History Demographics and Economics Management World War I:  The Beginning of the 20th Century The Roman Republic and America - Differences and Some Possible Parallels Economic and Fiscal Policy Financial Markets and Investment Strategies Foreign Exchange Markets The United States American Foreign Policy and International  Relations Geopolitics and the Global Economy Geopolitics of Oil and Natural Gas Visionaries BASIC CONCEPTS AND THEORY Introduction to Economic Theory Economic Development and Economic Growth Production Functions and Supply Chains Demand  Analysis The following post was contributed by Dennis Schuchman. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Real Intelligence (RI) You, Your Brain and Credit Card s Critique of Basic Economic Theory MAR...

Written by Andrea Dragon, Ph.D. Andrea investigates and writes about New Jersey's industrial history. Professor Dragon will be teaching a continuing education course on "New Jersey's Explosives History" at Rutgers - New Brunswick in the fall, 2024. For details, see the fall catalog at  olliru.rutgers.edu . The course is described on page 31.   1914:  World War I Breaks Out   Russia started to modernize its army in 1913, with substantial French financial and weapons support. The beginning of a five-year plan, one of the main goals was to expand artillery to catch up with Germany. But war broke out.    After the first four months of the war, all combatants realized they were in for a long war with deadly modern weapons. Every country’s strategy of a quick victory through offensive warfare failed. Germany did not defeat France and England in the west, and the Russian offensive against Germany in the east ended in disaster. The result was four years of tre...

Baldwin Locomotive Works:  Erecting Floor BALDWIN LOCOMOTIVE WORKS:  A HISTORICAL EXAMPLE OF BILATERAL OLIGOPOLY Baldwin, the largest producer of steam locomotives in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, faced problems typical of a dominant company in a bilateral oligopolistic industry.  A highly cyclical, almost unpredictable competitive environment conditioned almost everything that happened at Baldwin . A high level of business risk followed from sudden, large fluctuations in demand from railroad companies. This meant that Baldwin often had excess capacity with substantial fixed investment. There were few opportunities for economies of scale.  Baldwin also depended on a skilled labor force with firm-specific knowledge and experience that was exposed to sudden and massive layoffs followed by the company’s attempts to rehire the same workers.  It is hard to imagine a more challenging competitive environment.   Baldwin was a large and dominant...