Stability of government is a key feature of successful economies, whereas instability leads to uncertainty about the future that threatens individual decisions and retards investment. History is replete with governments that solved problems of violence and instability by enriching a small number of powerful elites at the expense of the vast majority of the population. As the power of these elites and economic conditions changed over time, governments needed to renegotiate the terms of the agreement between elites, change the identity of the elite groups included in the governing coalition or face consequences of civil war. Seven papers in our session consider how governments in Hawaii (“Changes in Relationships, Rules, and Elites in Hawaii”) the Cape Colony (“Expropriation with Partial Compensation”), India (“The Colonial Influence on National Policies in the South Asia Region” and “Over-Reliance on Law”), China (“Monetary and Financial Transformation in Early Twentieth-Century China” and “Political Stability and Industrial Development in Early Twentieth-Century China”), and Cuba (“How Cuba Abandoned Laissez Faire”) adjusted to changes in the economic power of elites and how their responses led to changes and persistence in institutions and social and economic outcomes. Fundamental changes in the nature and composition of the ruling coalition and institutions are, of course, not the only response that a government can make in the face of changing economic conditions and changing strength of elite groups. Major policy initiatives conducted within the framework of the existing institutions of government can, in some instances, suffice to allow adaptation to conditions of crisis. The eighth paper in our session (“The New Deal and Agricultural Investment in Machinery”) examines New Deal agricultural policies implemented in the United States during the Great Depression and consider how these policies affected investment in agricultural machinery and work animals and changed the distribution of rents to critical elites and interest groups. The ninth paper (“The Impact of World War II on the Growth of U.S. Potential Output”) questions the received wisdom that World War II laid the supply foundations for U.S. output and productivity growth in the postwar period.