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Handbook of Macroeconomics, 2
FIRST EDITION
John B. Taylor
Stanford University, Stanford, CA, United States
Harald Uhlig
University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, United States
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress
ISBN: 978-0-444-59469-3 (Vol. 2A)
ISBN: 978-0-444-59466-2 (Vol. 2B)
Set record (2A and 2B): 978-0-444-59487-7
The aim of the Handbooks in Economics series is to produce Handbooks for various
branches of economics, each of which is a definitive source, reference, and teaching
supplement for use by professional researchers and advanced graduate students. Each
Handbook provides self-contained surveys of the current state of a branch of economics
in the form of chapters prepared by leading specialists on various aspects of this branch of
economics. These surveys summarize not only received results but also newer develop-
ments, from recent journal articles and discussion papers. Some original material is also
included, but the main goal is to provide comprehensive and accessible surveys. The
Handbooks are intended to provide not only useful reference volumes for professional
collections but also possible supplementary readings for advanced courses for graduate
students in economics.
Kenneth J. Arrow and Michael D. Intriligator
v
EDITOR’S BIOGRAPHY
John B. Taylor is the Mary and Robert Raymond Professor of Economics at Stanford
University and the George P. Shultz Senior Fellow in Economics at Stanford’s Hoover
Institution. He is also the director of Stanford’s Introductory Economics Center. His
research focuses on macroeconomics, monetary economics, and international econom-
ics. He coedited Volume 1 of the Handbook of Macroeconomics and recently wrote
Getting Off Track, one of the first books on the financial crisis, and First Principles:
Five Keys to Restoring America’s Prosperity. He served as senior economist and member
of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. From 2001 to 2005, he served as
undersecretary of the US Treasury for international affairs. Taylor was awarded the
Hoagland Prize and the Rhodes Prize by Stanford University for excellence in under-
graduate teaching. He received the Alexander Hamilton Award and the Treasury
Distinguished Service Award for his policy contributions at the US Treasury. Taylor
received a BA in economics summa cum laude from Princeton and a PhD in economics
from Stanford.
Harald Uhlig, born 1961, is a professor at the Department of Economics of the
University of Chicago since 2007 and was chairman of that department from 2009 to
2012. Previously, he held positions at Princeton, Tilburg University and the Humboldt-
Universit€at zu Berlin. His research interests are in quantitative macroeconomics, financial
markets, and Bayesian econometrics. He served as coeditor of Econometrica from 2006 to
2010 and as editor of the Journal of Political Economy since 2012 (head editor since 2013).
He is a consultant of the Bundesbank, the European Central Bank, and the Federal
Reserve Bank of Chicago. He is a fellow of the Econometric Society and a recipient
of the Gossen Preis of the Verein f€ ur Socialpolitik, awarded annually to an economist
in the German language area whose work has gained an international reputation.
xix
CONTRIBUTORS
E. Afanasyeva
IMFS, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany
M. Aguiar
Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, United States
A. Alesina
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States; IGIER, Bocconi University, Milan, Italy
G.-M. Angeletos
MIT; NBER, Cambridge, MA, United States
S. Basu
Boston College, Chestnut Hill; NBER, Cambridge, MA, United States
M.D. Bordo
Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ; NBER, Cambridge, MA, United States
J. Borovička
New York University, New York, NY; NBER, Cambridge, MA, United States
P. Brinca
Nova School of Business and Economics, Lisboa; Centre for Economics and Finance,
University of Porto, Porto, Portugal
M.K. Brunnermeier
Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, United States
V.V. Chari
University of Minnesota; Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Minneapolis, MN, United States
S. Chatterjee
Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, United States
H. Cole
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States
P. D’Erasmo
Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, United States
D.W. Diamond
University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Chicago, IL; National Bureau of Economic
Research, Cambridge, MA, United States
M. Doepke
Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, United States
E. Farhi
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States
xxi
xxii Contributors
J. Fernández-Villaverde
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States
N. Fuchs-Sch€undeln
Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany; CEPR, London, United Kingdom
M. Gertler
NYU, New York, NY; Princeton University, Princeton, NJ; Federal Reserve Board of
Governors, Washington, DC, United States
M. Golosov
Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, United States
V. Guerrieri
University of Chicago, Chicago, IL; NBER, Cambridge, MA, United States
R.E. Hall
Hoover Institution, Stanford University, CA; National Bureau of Economic Research,
Cambridge, MA, United States
J.D. Hamilton
University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, United States
G.D. Hansen
UCLA, Los Angeles, CA; NBER, Cambridge, MA, United States
L.P. Hansen
University of Chicago, Chicago, IL; NBER, Cambridge, MA, United States
T.A. Hassan
CEPR, London, United Kingdom; University of Chicago, Chicago, IL; NBER, Cambridge,
MA, United States
J. Hassler
Institute for International Economic Studies (IIES), Stockholm University, Stockholm;
University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden; CEPR, London, United Kingdom
C.L. House
NBER, Cambridge, MA; University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, United States
E. Hurst
The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Chicago, IL, United States
C.I. Jones
Stanford GSB, Stanford, CA; NBER, Cambridge, MA, United States
A.K. Kashyap
University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Chicago, IL; National Bureau of Economic
Research, Cambridge, MA, United States
P.J. Kehoe
University of Minnesota; Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Minneapolis, MN,
United States; University College London, London, United Kingdom
N. Kiyotaki
NYU, New York, NY; Princeton University, Princeton, NJ; Federal Reserve Board of
Governors, Washington, DC, United States
Contributors xxiii
D. Krueger
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States; CEPR, London, United Kingdom;
CFS, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany; NBER, Cambridge, MA, United States;
Netspar, Tilburg, The Netherlands
P. Krusell
Institute for International Economic Studies (IIES), Stockholm University, Stockholm;
University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden; CEPR, London, United Kingdom; NBER,
Cambridge, MA, United States
M. Kuete
IMFS, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany
E.M. Leeper
Indiana University, IN; NBER, Cambridge, MA, United States
C. Leith
University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom
C. Lian
MIT, Cambridge, MA, United States
J. Linde
Sveriges Riksbank; Stockholm School of Economics, Stockholm, Sweden; CEPR, London,
United Kingdom
E. McGrattan
University of Minnesota; Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Minneapolis, MN, United States
C.M. Meissner
NBER, Cambridge, MA; University of California, Davis, CA, United States
E.G. Mendoza
PIER, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA; NBER, Cambridge, MA, United States
A. Mian
Princeton University, Princeton, NJ; NBER, Cambridge, MA, United States
K. Mitman
CEPR, London, United Kingdom; IIES, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
L.E. Ohanian
UCLA, Los Angeles; NBER, Cambridge, MA; Hoover Institution, Stanford University,
Stanford, CA, United States
A. Passalacqua
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States
F. Perri
CEPR, London, United Kingdom; Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Minneapolis, MN,
United States
M. Piazzesi
Stanford University, Stanford, CA; NBER, Cambridge, MA, United States
xxiv Contributors
E.C. Prescott
Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ; Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Minneapolis, MN,
United States
A. Prestipino
NYU, New York, NY; Princeton University, Princeton, NJ; Federal Reserve Board of
Governors, Washington, DC, United States
V.A. Ramey
University of California, San Diego, CA; NBER, Cambridge, MA, United States
J.F. Rubio-Ramı́rez
Emory University; Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Atlanta, GA, United States; BBVA
Research, Madrid, Madrid, Spain; Fulcrum Asset Management, London, England,
United Kingdom
Y. Sannikov
Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, United States
M. Schneider
Stanford University, Stanford, CA; NBER, Cambridge, MA, United States
F. Schorfheide
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States
F. Smets
ECB, Frankfurt, Germany; KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium; CEPR, London, United Kingdom
A.A. Smith, Jr.
NBER, Cambridge, MA; Yale University, New Haven, CT, United States
Z. Stangebye
University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, United States
J.H. Stock
Harvard University; The National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA,
United States
A. Sufi
University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Chicago, IL; NBER, Cambridge, MA,
United States
J.B. Taylor
Stanford University, Stanford, CA, United States
M. Tertilt
University of Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany
A. Tsyvinski
Yale University, New Haven, CT, United States
H. Uhlig
University of Chicago, Chicago, IL; NBER, Cambridge, MA, United States; CEPR, London,
United Kingdom
M.W. Watson
The Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ; The National Bureau
of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA, United States
Contributors xxv
I. Werning
MIT, Cambridge, MA, United States
N. Werquin
Toulouse School of Economics, Toulouse, France
V. Wieland
IMFS, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany
R. Wouters
National Bank of Belgium, Brussels, Belgium; CEPR, London, United Kingdom
J. Yoo
IMFS, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany; Bank of Korea, Seoul, South Korea
J. Zhang
Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Chicago, IL, United States
Participants-Chicago
Left to right
Last row: Jesper Linde, John Heaton, Basu (slightly stepping forward), Zighuo He, Thorsten
Drautzburg, Jonas Fischer, Andrea Prestipino, Jarda Borovicka, Mathias Trabandt
Second-from-last: Manuel Amador, Marty Eichenbaum (slightly stepping forward), Guido
Lorenzoni, Luigi Boccola, Satyajit Chatterjee, Campbell Leith, Lawrence Christiano,
Christopher House
Forth row: Marios Angeletos, Hal Cole, Markus Brunnermeier, Lars Hansen,
Jeff Campbell
Third Row: Volker Wieland, Douglas Diamond, Anil Kashyap, R€ udiger Bachmann,
Harald Uhlig, Nobu Kiyotaki
Second row: Frank Smets, Michele Tertilt, Eric Leeper, Jing Zhang, Enrique Mendoza
First row: Mathias Doepke, Veronica Guerrieri, Amir Sufi, Michael Weber, John Taylor
Not Pictured:
Authors: Ivan Werning, Christopher House, Erik Hurst, Raf Wouters, Yuliy Sannikov,
Alberto Alesina, Andrea Passalacqua
Discussants: Stavros Panageas, Eric Sims, Thibaut Lamadon, Alessandra Voena, Kinda
Cheryl Hachem, Casey Mulligan, Alp Simsek
xxvii
Participants-Stanford
Left to right
Last row: Fabrizio Perri, Pablo Kurlat, Mikhail Golosov, Patrick Kehoe, Gary Hansen,
Tarek Hassan, Pete Klenow, Christopher Meissner, Frank Schorfheide, Lee Ohanian
(somewhat behind), Robert Hodrick
Middle row: Kurt Mitman, Dirk Krueger (slightly behind), Tony Smith, Harald Uhlig
(slightly behind), Nicolas Werquin, Mark Watson (somewhat in front), Nicola
Fuchs-Sch€ undeln, Ellen McGrattan, Valerie Ramey (somewhat in front), Sebastian
DiTella (to the right/behind Valerie Ramey), Pedro Brinca (somewhat in front),
Charles Kolstad, Bob Hall, John Hassler, Carl Walsh
Front row: Chad Jones, Per Krusell, Jim Hamilton, Jim Stock, John Taylor, Steve Davis,
Ed Prescott, Michael Bordo, Chari, Oscar Jorda, Serguei Maliar, Amir Kermani
Not Pictured:
Authors: Monika Piazzesi, Martin Schneider, Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde, Juan Rubio-
Ramirez, Aleh Tsyvinski
Discussants: Bart Hobijn, Pierre Siklos, Arvin Krishnamurthy, Christopher Tonetti,
Yuriy Gorodnichenko, John Cochrane, Michael Bauer, Cosmin Ilut
PREFACE
This Handbook aims to survey the state of knowledge and major advances during the past
two decades in the field of macroeconomics. It covers empirical, theoretical, methodo-
logical, and policy issues, including fiscal, monetary, and regulatory policies to deal with
unemployment, economic growth, and crises, taking account of research developments
before, during, and after the global financial crisis of 2007–2009. It can serve as a textbook
and as an introduction to frontier research.
xxix
xxx Preface
macro models. But the 1999 Handbook already included work on financial frictions as
evidenced by the chapter written by Ben Bernanke, Mark Gertler, and Simon Gilchrist.
And an important finding reported in the chapter in this Handbook by Jesper Linde, Frank
Smets, and Raf Wouters is that when more financial factors are added to macro models
used at central banks, they do not help that much in explaining the financial crisis.
SUMMARY
The 33 chapters of the Handbook are divided into five sections. Each chapter starts with a
short summary written by its authors, and reading these is the best way to understand
what is in the Handbook. This short summary of the whole book shows how the chapters
are organized and fit together.
Section 1, The Facts of Economic Growth and Economic Fluctuation, starts off with exam-
ination of the fundamental facts upon which macroeconomic theories are built and with
which they must be consistent. It covers both the long run—going back 100 years—and
the short run—tracing how shocks impact and propagate over time and how changes in
policy regimes or rules affect economic fluctuations. Emphasizing microeconomic
underpinnings, the chapters in this section look at the time allocation by people and fam-
ilies, the impact of longer decisions take on debt or purchases houses, the way wage deci-
sions affect the allocation of labor, and the historical impact of financial and fiscal crises.
Section 2 focuses The Methodology of Macroeconomics. It covers factor models, structural
VARs, solution methods, estimation of DSGE models, recursive contracts, endogenously
incomplete markets, heterogeneous agents, natural experiments, the use of “wedges” as
accounting framework for business cycle models, incomplete information, coordination
frictions, and comprehensive methods of comparing models and achieving robustness.
Section 3, Financial-Real Connections, covers bank runs, the real effects of financial crises,
credit markets, booms and busts, the central role of the housing market, and quantitative
models of sovereign debt crises. It also shows different ways to connect the real and the
financial sector including through continuous-time methods and models of the term
structure of uncertainty.
Section 4, Models of Economic Growth and Fluctuations, covers several approaches to
modeling the economy, including neoclassical or real business cycle models and staggered
wage and price models or other rigidities that can explain slow recoveries and long slums.
It takes a macroeconomic perspective on environmental issues as well as family decisions.
Section 5, Macroeconomic Policy, contains a thorough review of models used by central
banks for conducting monetary policy, the analysis of regulatory policy including
liquidity requirements, the fiscal theory of the price level, fiscal multipliers, liquidity
traps, currency unions, and the technical sustainability vs the political economy of
government debt.
John B. Taylor
Harald Uhlig
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First, we would like to acknowledge the initial encouragement from Kenneth Arrow and
Michael Intriligator who, as Co-Editors of the Handbook of Economics Series, suggested in
May 2007—nearly a decade ago and before the Global Financial Crisis—the need for a
new Handbook of Macroeconomics. We are also grateful to Scott Bentley, Elsevier Acqui-
sition Editor, who worked closely with us to get helpful comments and reviews of our
initial outline, to Michael Woodford, who succeeded Mike Intriligator as Co-Editor of
the Series for his helpful suggestions on organization and coverage, and to Joslyn
Chaiprasert-Paguio, Editorial Project Manager, who brought the project to completion.
We—along with all the economists and students who will benefit from this volume—
owe a great deal of thanks to the 74 accomplished economists who agreed to contribute
to this endeavor for the time and creativity they invested in their chapters. We thank
them for attending the conferences, presenting draft chapters, and then revising the chap-
ters under strict deadlines. We particularly thank the discussants of the draft chapters
whose careful comments helped improve the chapters and the overall book itself, includ-
ing Manuel Amador, Ruediger Bachmann, Bob Barsky, Michael Bauer, Luigi Bocola,
Jeff Campbell, John Cochrane, Sebastian Di Tella, Thorsten Drautzberg, Jonas Fisher,
Yuriy Gorodnichenko, Kinda Cheryl Hachem, Zhiguo He, John Heaton, Bart Hobijn,
Robert Hodrick, Cosmin Ilut, Oscar Jorda, Amir Kermani, Peter Klenow, Charles Kol-
stad, Arvind Krishnamurthy, Pablo Kurlat, Thibaut Lamadon, Guido Lorenzoni, Serguei
Maliar, Casey Mulligan, Stavros Panageas, Pierre Siklos, Eric Sims, Alp Simsek, Chris-
topher Tonetti, Alessandra Voena, Carl Walsh, and Michael Weber.
The two conferences at Stanford and Chicago where authors presented draft chapters
and received this critical commentary were essential to the completion of the Handbook of
Macroeconomics. We thank the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and the Becker-
Friedman Institute at the University of Chicago for the financial and logistical support
that made these conferences possible. We also wish to thank Marie-Christine Slakey
for managing the overall manuscript and communications with authors from the very
beginning of the project.
John B. Taylor
Harald Uhlig
xxxi
Volume 2A
S E CT I ON 1
The Facts of Economic Growth and Economic
Fluctuation
The Facts of Economic Growth 13
Share of GDP
25%
20%
15% Structures
10%
5%
Equipment
0%
1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
Year
Fig. 4 Investment in physical capital (private and public), United States. Source: National Income
and Product Accounts, U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, table 5.2.5. Intellectual property products and
inventories are excluded. Government and private investment are combined. Structures includes both
residential and nonresidential investment. Ratios of nominal investment to GDP are shown.
150
100 Residential
Nonresidential structures
50
The article goes on to state that the total number of employees was
829, 77 of these being employed in the building department, while
275 were members of the Bonus Investment Society. It concludes:—
“Some organisations are mere aggregations without either heart or mind.
The parts mistakenly believe that they can evade as organisations duties that
belong to them as individuals. But the problem before co-operators allows no
such evasion. They have to set up, not only good businesses in sanitary
buildings, but also a new industrial system, where labourers are recognised as
human beings entitled to share in the results and direction of their own lives.
Because the leaders of the United Baking Society have recognised this, and
have not allowed prosperity to poison aspiration, all men will wish them well,
and we may say with an inner meaning to the words that we hope in time
great multitudes may eat their bread and be thankful.”
2. JAS. H. FORSYTH,
Cashier and Accountant.
NEW STABLES.
The rate at which the trade of the Society was growing called for an
almost continuous growth in live and rolling stock, and consequently
for increased accommodation. Already the provision for stables and
van-sheds which had been made when the removal to M‘Neil Street
took place was much too small, and various makeshift methods had
to be adopted to provide the necessary accommodation for the
growing stud of horses. At the same time the committee were now
getting a different idea of the possibilities of the enterprise, and were
desirous, therefore, of making the bakery as compact, and with its
various parts as well co-ordinated as possible. They were desirous,
therefore, of removing the stables away from the bakery altogether,
and it was with this object in view that the ground on the south side
of Govan Street was purchased. At the quarterly meeting held in
September 1896 they were granted power to proceed with the
erection of stables and workshops, and this work was commenced
immediately. At the same time, plans were prepared and the erection
proceeded with of a temporary stable on a part of the same ground.
By the end of 1898 the new stables and workshops were completed,
and the December meeting of the Society was held there, so that the
delegates might have an opportunity of being shown over the
premises.
ORGANISATION.
Never at any time had the directors shown carelessness in their
supervision of what had now become a gigantic concern, and they
were continually giving thought to means of improving the
organisation of the Federation and of improving the supervision by
the committee. Early in the period with which this chapter deals,
they made arrangements whereby the members of the committee
took it in turn to visit the bakery each week. These visits were found
of value by the members of the committee, as it enabled them to
acquire fuller information about the working of the Society. Each
member reported the result of his visit to the sub-committee,
together with any suggestion he had to make.
Towards the end of 1894 the committee appointed a biscuit
traveller, Mr Archibald Petrie being the man appointed.
MANAGER OR NO MANAGER.
The quarterly meeting had under consideration the question of the
general management of the Society, the points discussed being the
appointment of a general manager, or the development of the system
of departmental managership. The discussion was inaugurated on a
motion moved by Mr Malcolm of Newton Society, “that a general
manager be appointed.” The result of the discussion was the
adoption of a suggestion by Mr Glasse—who said he had sat in
committee with a manager and without a manager, and was of the
opinion that the business could be best managed without a manager.
He suggested that the matter should be remitted back to the
committee for consideration and report, and the other motions and
amendments which had been moved were withdrawn in favour of
this suggestion.
The committee took up consideration of the question within a
month, and came to the conclusion that the business of the Society
could be best managed by being divided into six departments, with a
departmental manager over each, who would be in direct touch with
the committee. These departments were: (1) The counting-house;
with Mr James H. Forsyth as head—this department to include all
the commercial transactions of the Society. (2) The productive
department, including the production of all bread, smallbread,
biscuits, and oatcakes; to be under the charge of Mr Robert Fraser,
who was also to have control of the enginemen and oilers. (3) The
distributive department, which was to include the dispatching of the
bread and the packing and dispatching of the biscuits and oatcakes;
to be under the management of Mr William Miller. (4) The delivery
was to be under the control of Mr Milne, stable foreman, who was to
have control of all the horses, vanmen, and nightwatchman. (5) The
building and repairs department, including the tradesmen and their
assistants; to be controlled by Mr Davidson. (6) The purvey
department and tearooms, under the management of Mr Robert
Watson.
The committee recommended, further, that they should meet
fortnightly, but that the monthly meeting remain as at present, the
bi-monthly meeting to be devoted to the interviewing of all the heads
of departments, each of whom was to present a written report.
Another recommendation was that the term for which members of
committee were elected should be extended, as they were of opinion
that the frequent changes amongst the membership of the Board
prevented members from acquiring a proper knowledge of the
business, and had in this way interfered with the successful
management of the Society. They believed that, if the delegates
would accept this suggestion for the alteration of the rule governing
elections, it would do much to consolidate the management of the
business in the hands of the committee. At the following general
meeting of the Society the principle of the report was accepted, and it
was decided to hold a special meeting at the close of the next general
meeting for the purpose of considering the alteration of rule
proposed. At this special meeting the delegates, however, refused to
make the alteration, and the tenure of office of members of
committee remained at one year.
In 1894 the Society attained to the dignity of a registered
telegraphic address, “Federation” being the name adopted. They also
had the telephone installed, as well as private lines communicating
with their teashops. At the end of the year they became members of
Kinning Park, St George, and Glasgow Eastern societies for the
purposes of trade, and later, of other societies as well. They also
undertook a census of their employees for the purpose of finding out
who amongst them were Co-operators and who were not. The census
showed that the Society had 431 employees, of whom 236 were
unmarried. Of the remainder 152, or 78 per cent., were associated
with Co-operative societies, and 43, or 22 per cent., were not.
THE SOCIETY AND THE C.W.S.
Naturally the directors were anxious to push their biscuit trade as
rapidly as they could, and having fixed up a trading agency with the
S.C.W.S. and with the Co-operative Institute, London, they
endeavoured to do the same with the C.W.S. This society had a
biscuit factory of their own, however, and were, not unnaturally,
reluctant to introduce what were really the goods of a competing
concern, therefore they refused to accept the agency. The next step
taken by the Society was that of appointing a traveller for the
purpose of pushing biscuits and oatcakes in England. Against this
step, however, a very vigorous protest was made by Mr James Young,
who considered that there should be no further pushing of the
Society’s goods into English societies against the wishes of the
English Wholesale Society’s committee. Following on this decision, it
was agreed that the Society’s productions should be exhibited at the
Crystal Palace Exhibition. This activity in England brought a letter
from the C.W.S. committee, who pointed out that the action of the
Baking Society would lead to competition and overlapping. Later,
that committee also passed a resolution in which they stated that
they were ready and willing to supply all the societies in England
with biscuits if they would only be allowed to do so, and sent a copy
of the resolution to the Baking Society’s committee.
THE BIG BOYCOTT.
Reference has already been made to the boycott of Co-operators
which was inaugurated all over Scotland and continued throughout
1896 and 1897. The traders had made their organisation very
complete, with the result that every manufacturing firm on which
they were in a position to bring pressure was compelled to discharge
all employees who remained members of Co-operative societies, or
whose parents continued members, or else to suffer very
considerable loss of trade. In no department of labour was it easier to
bring effective pressure to bear than on the baking trade, and the
result was that all the big baking firms in the city were compelled to
post up notices informing their employees that they must cease to
trade at Co-operative stores or leave their employment. Similar
notices were posted up in every workshop and factory where the
Traders’ Association was in a position to apply any pressure, often
against the will of the employers, who recognised that those of their
workers who were Co-operators were usually the best and steadiest
men, but who were compelled to choose between perpetrating a
manifest injustice and seeing their businesses ruined. No tactics were
too mean or despicable to be resorted to by the traders’ organisation.
They had their spies everywhere, and a favourite method of
operations was that of watching the shops of the Co-operative
societies and tracking the customers home, then ascertaining where
the husbands were employed, and writing to their employers to
demand their dismissal. This espionage system was very perfect in its
way, and considerable hardship was caused to individual Co-
operators by it; while the boycott had a lasting effect in another
direction, for it was the direct cause of the large proportion of
householders, in the places throughout Scotland where the boycott
raged most fiercely, which became represented amongst the
shareholders of the societies by the wives of the householders instead
of by the householders themselves.
While it lasted the boycott was not without its humorous incidents.
If the traders had their system of espionage, so also had the Co-
operative Defence Association, and there was not a meeting of the
Traders’ Association held, however great the precautions which
might be taken to ensure absolute secrecy, of which a practically
verbatim report of the proceedings was not in the hands of the
secretary of the Co-operative Defence Committee next morning. One
of the laughable incidents concerned one such meeting, a full report
of which was published by the Co-operators. This was followed by a
visit from an irate traders’ official, who demanded to know the
source from which the report had come. It is hardly necessary to
state that he went away without the information asked for, and to
this day it is probable that the source of the information is known to
less than half a dozen people, not one of whom had anything to do
with the traders’ organisation.
But if the boycott was the cause of hardship to individuals here
and there, it brought grist in a very real sense to the Co-operative
mill in other directions. Already, in this chapter, it has been pointed
out that it was a two-edged weapon, and while Co-operative societies
did not cease to trade with private manufacturers who did not adopt
the boycott, they were kept well informed of those manufacturers
who did. It was found that while some manufacturers had no wish to
employ Co-operative labour they were keenly desirous of retaining
Co-operative custom, and it came as an unpleasant surprise to some
of them to find that Co-operative societies objected to the dismissal
of employees because of their Co-operative connection, and that they
refused to trade with manufacturers who adopted such tactics. It is
said that one Glasgow firm lost Co-operative trade at this time worth
£20,000 a year and never regained it.
In two directions the boycott benefited Co-operative production,
therefore. It turned the attention of those at the head of the
movement to the need of being as far as possible independent of
private manufacturers for supplies, and thus it did much to stimulate
Co-operative manufactures and to hasten entry into new spheres of
work. On the other hand, the operation of the boycott, where
manufacturers refused to supply goods which were already being
produced Co-operatively, increased the demand for the Co-operative
manufactures; while the process of retaliation mentioned above also
stimulated this demand. In both of those directions, the Baking
Society was a gainer. One or two societies in the neighbourhood of
Glasgow, which hitherto had always stood aloof from the Federation
and had done very little trade with it, now approached it for supplies;
while a rapidly growing city society, whose members had consistently
refused to give the Federation the whole of their bread trade, were
now prepared to do so. Notwithstanding the fact that the capacity of
the bakery was fully taxed, an endeavour was made by the committee
to supply the wants of those societies who had brought home to them
in this manner the value of federation in the day of adversity. A big
trade in biscuits had also been done hitherto with Co-operative
societies by the biscuit manufacturers of Glasgow, but the boycott
put an end to that trade, and in this direction also the Bakery gained
very considerably. It may be asserted with confidence, therefore, that
not only did the traders’ organisation fail to achieve the object they
had in view—the destruction of the Co-operative movement in
Scotland, and especially in Glasgow and the West—but their
campaign had exactly the opposite effect, and ended by leaving the
Co-operative movement stronger in membership, stronger in trade
and capital, and with a membership more closely knit together than
it would have been but for the agitation and the boycott.
The members of the Federation were not slow to recognise the
vital nature of the issues at stake, and placed a credit of £1,000 in the
hands of the directors to use as they might deem advisable for the
defence of the Co-operative movement. At the Perth Congress, which
was held when the boycott campaign was at its height, the delegates
had decided in favour of Co-operative representation in Parliament;
and later, when the Co-operative Union sent out a circular, with the
object of ascertaining what support a Parliamentary campaign was
likely to secure amongst the societies, the delegates to the Baking
Society’s meeting, by a large majority, decided in favour of a
Parliamentary campaign; mainly owing to the eloquence of the
chairman, Messrs Glasse and MacNab, Wholesale, Mr Gerrard, and
Messrs Low and Stewart of Kinning Park. Undoubtedly, the boycott
had its influence on the decision. The chairman was particularly
strong in his remarks at the meeting, and, in referring to the debate
on the subject which had taken place at Congress, suggested that if
their English friends had had a taste of the boycott they would put
aside any party prejudices. With the defeat of the traders, however,
and the apathy of the Co-operators on the other side of the Border,
the agitation died down, and, except as a subject of academic debate
at Congress, nothing further was heard of it for some years.