Download or read book The Farm nonfarm Wage Gap in the Antebellum United States written by Robert Andrew Margo and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 46 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sectoral wage gaps for workers of comparable skill are central to issues in economic development and economic history. This paper presents new archival evidence on the farm-nonfarm wage gap for the United States just prior to the American Civil War. Measured at the level of local labor markets, the wage gaps are small and not very persistent over time. Aggregated to reflect the geographic distribution of farm and nonfarm labor, the gaps are larger than previously thought. I also show that investment in manufacturing capital between 1850 and 1860 responded to labor market inefficiencies indicated by the gaps: counties with relatively low farm wages experienced above-average investment.
Download or read book Wages and Labor Markets in the United States 1820 1860 written by Robert A. Margo and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2009-02-15 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Research by economists and economic historians has greatly expanded our knowledge of labor markets and real wages in the United States since the Civil War, but the period from 1820 to 1860 has been far less studied. Robert Margo fills this gap by collecting and analyzing the payroll records of civilians hired by the United States Army and the 1850 and 1860 manuscript federal Censuses of Social Statistics. New wage series are constructed for three occupational groups—common laborers, artisans, and white-collar workers—in each of the four major census regions—Northeast, Midwest, South Atlantic, and South Central—over the period 1820 to 1860, and also for California between 1847 and 1860. Margo uses these data, along with previously collected evidence on prices, to explore a variety of issues central to antebellum economic development. This volume makes a significant contribution to economic history by presenting a vast amount of previously unexamined data to advance the understanding of the history of wages and labor markets in the antebellum economy.
Download or read book The Extent of the Labor Market in the United States 1850 1914 written by Joshua L. Rosenbloom and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between the middle of the nineteenth century and the beginning of World War I improvements in transportation and communication encouraged increasing interregional and international economic integration. This paper traces and analyzes the progress of increasing labor market integration in the United States during this period of `globalization.' It argues that although the falling cost and increasing speed of transportation and communication in this period initiated a substantial expansion of labor market boundaries, the pattern of increasing integration was strikingly uneven. By the end of the nineteenth century, labor markets in the northern United States were part of a tightly integrated regional labor market that was in turn closely linked with labor markets in northern Europe. But this regional and international integration coincided with the persistent failure of integration between northern and southern labor markets within the United States. The importance of this finding is two-fold. First, it suggests that the forces shaping the determination of wages, the evolution of wage structure, and the growth of unions cannot be understood at either a purely local, or a purely national level. Second, it shows that the process of market integration was complex, depending on the interaction between historically determined market institutions and falling transportation and communication costs.
Download or read book The Entry Into the U S Labor Market of Antebellum European Immigrants 1840 60 written by Joseph P. Ferrie and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 58 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study examines the occupational mobility of antebellum immigrants as they entered the U.S. White collar, skilled, and semi-skilled immigrants left unskilled jobs more rapidly after arrival than farmers and unskilled workers. British and German immigrants fared better than the Irish; literate immigrants in rapidly growing counties and places with many immigrants fared best. These findings have implications for (1) the accuracy of estimates of immigrant occupational mobility; (2) the size of the human capital transfer resulting from antebellum immigration; and (3) the causes of the difficulty experienced by some immigrant groups in transferring their skills to the U.S.
Download or read book Explaining the Rise in Antebellum Pauperism written by Laura Lynne Kiesling and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 1850s witnessed one of the earliest American history. During the decade the proportion of individuals receiving public assistance -- increased from 5.8 in 1850 to 10.2 in 1860, an increase of 76 percent. Previous attempts to explain the increase in antebellum pauperism have been hampered by the available published data, which are too aggregated to be of much use. This paper explores the determinants of antebellum pauperism using previously unexploited archival data drawn from the manuscript censuses of social statistics. These records provided detailed evidence on the incidence of pauperism at the county level. We find that about half of the increase in pauperism can be attributed to falling real wages during the decade. Contributing factors were increased immigration and urbanization.
Download or read book The American Economic Review written by and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 1312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Strikebreaking and the Labor Market in the United States 1881 1894 written by Joshua L. Rosenbloom and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Challenges of Economic Maturity written by Joshua L. Rosenbloom and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper provides an account of the complex changes taking place within New England in the years from 1880 to 1940. After 1880, technological changes and market shifts undermined the sources of comparative advantage that had promoted the concentration of textile and footwear production within the region and propelled regional economic growth. Despite the decline of these industries after 1880, New England's history after 1880 can hardly be characterized as one of economic decline. Regional economic growth did slow in the wake of these events, but the impact of this slowdown on living standards was moderated, by market driven adjustments in resources away from declining sectors, and by the region's increasing integration within national and international labor and financial markets. Within the region's traditional industries, manufacturers shifted product lines to take advantage of the areas in which they could still compete. At the same time, the growth of other manufacturing activities and an increasingly robust service sector created new employment opportunities that laid the foundation for the region's post-World War II recovery. The responsiveness of international and interregional labor migration moderated the growth of regional labor supplies in response to diminishing opportunities. Meanwhile, financial market integration enabled New Englanders to share in the benefits of more rapid growth elsewhere in the country.
Download or read book Papers and Proceedings of the Annual Meeting written by American Economic Association and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 582 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Historical Perspectives on the Economic Consequences of Immigration Into the United States written by Susan B. Carter and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 94 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper highlights the distinctive features of the theoretical approach taken by scholars who analyzed the impacts of the mass migration into the United States in the two decades preceding World War I. Broadly speaking, this literature was couched in terms of the aggregate production function, productivity change in factor proportions. Attention was focused on the close interrelatedness among the many diverse elements in the economy. A notable difference between the historical studies and the recent literature on the impacts of immigration is the propensity of the current literature to concentrate only on the first-round consequences. It is easy to show that these will be harmful to resident workers who face direct competition. Economic historians writing about the earlier period of high immigration went beyond the first-round effects. Taking a long-run perspective, they identified many aspects of the mass immigration that were beneficial from the point of view of the resident population.
Download or read book The Cambridge Economic History of the United States written by Stanley L. Engerman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 1046 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This three volume work offers a comprehensive survey of the history of economic activity and economic change in the United States, and in those regions whose economies have at certain times been closely allied to that of the US.
Download or read book Human Capital in History written by Leah Platt Boustan and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2014-11-05 with total page 419 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume honours the contributions Claudia Goldin has made to scholarship and teaching in economic history and labour economics. The chapters address some closely integrated issues: the role of human capital in the long-term development of the American economy, trends in fertility and marriage, and women's participation in economic change.
Download or read book Fixing the Facts written by Susan B. Carter and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We argue that the enumerators' occupational returns from the important census of 1880 were heavily edited prior to publication. The effect was to substantially reduce the number of individuals reported with an occupation. For youthful and older males and all women the editing was so substantial as to qualitatively affect the apparent trend in labor force participation for these groups over time. The stylized facts regarding labor market dynamics during the period of American industrialization and the historical stories constructed around them will now need to be reexamined. We contend that the editing was secretly authorized by Francis Amasa Walker, Superintendent of the Tenth Census of 1880 and one of the most prominent and decorated economists, statisticians, and public servants in America at this time. While other scholars have identified potential sources of bias in census figures, no one has heretofore suggested that the official statistics of the United States were covertly altered to present a picture different from information collected by census enumerators. If we are correct, the sociology of official nineteenth-century American statistics will require rethinking.
Download or read book Operations of unfettered Labor Markets written by Price Van Meter Fishback and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 90 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The American economy at the turn of the century offers an excellent opportunity to study the functioning of relatively unregulated labor markets.
Download or read book Manufacturing where Agriculture Predominates written by Kenneth Lee Sokoloff and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We employ the 1860 Census of Manufactures to study rural antebellum manufacturing in the South and Midwest, and find that manufacturing output per capita was similar across regions in counties specialized in the same agricultural products. The southern deficit in manufactures per capita appears to have been largely attributable to the very low levels of output in counties specialized in cotton production. This implies that it was the South's capabilities for the highly profitable cotton production, not the existence of slavery per se, that was responsible for the region's limited industrial development -- at least in rural areas. The other major finding is that in both the South and the Midwest measured total factor productivity was significantly lower in counties specialized in wheat (the most seasonal of agricultural products as regards labor requirements). This is consistent with suggestions that agricultural districts where the predominant crops were highly seasonal in their requirements for labor were well suited to support manufacturing enterprise during the offpeak periods.
Download or read book The Efficiency Consequences of Institutional Change written by Stephen H. Haber and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper examines one of the central hypotheses of the New Institutional Economics: that the reform of institutions--the rules and regulations enforced by the State that both permit and bound the operation of markets--is crucial for the process of economic growth. It examines this hypothesis by estimating the productivity gain afforded to Brazilian textile firms by the reform of the regulations governing Brazil's securities markets in 1890. This analysis is based on panel data regressions on 18 firm-level censuses covering the period 1866-1934, which permit me to decompose total factor productivity growth. These censuses cover both limited liability joint stock corporations as well as privately owned firms. I also analyze corporate financial statements and stock market data for publicly held firms covering the period 1895-1940. The paper argues that the reform of the regulations pertaining to limited liability and mandatory disclosure permitted the widespread use of Brazil's debt and equity markets to mobilize capital for industry. This meant that the capital constraints faced by firms prior to the 1890's were relaxed. The result was an increased rate of investment, a decline in industrial concentration, and accelerated rates of growth of productivity.
Download or read book Immigrants and Natives written by Joseph P. Ferrie and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Immigrants who arrived in the U.S. before the Civil War were less likely to reside in locations with high immigrant concentrations as their time in the U.S. increased. This is contrary to the experience of recent immigrants who show no decrease in concentration after arrival. The reduced isolation of antebellum immigrants was not due to their own movement to places with fewer immigrants but due to the movement of the native-born into places (particularly cities) with large immigrant concentrations. The isolation of contemporary immigrants even after several years in the U.S. thus results more from the reluctance of the native-born to relocate to places with many immigrants than from immigrants' reluctance to move to places with fewer immigrants. Contemporary immigrants had greater success than antebellum immigrants avoiding unskilled jobs as they entered the U.S. job market, though they moved out of unskilled jobs less often than antebellum immigrants when comparing their occupations at two points in time after arrival. Improvements in occupational mobility between antebellum and recent immigrants were most apparent among those in other than unskilled jobs. These findings suggest the need to reevaluate some of the premises upon which the concerns about the economic performance of recent immigrants are based.
