Explorations in Economic History最新文献

The quality of historical US census data is critical to the performance of linking algorithms. We use genealogical profiles to correct measurement error in census names and ages. Our findings suggest that one in every two records has an error in name or age, and human capital is correlated with lower error rates. While errors in age decline across subsequent census rounds from 1850 to 1930, errors in names do not exhibit such trends. Fixing all transcription errors, hence leaving only those errors made at the time of enumeration, would reduce error rates in names by 41 percent. Correcting all names and ages using genealogical profiles leads to 20%–36% more links and fewer false positives. Reassuringly, we find that reducing such errors has a negligible effect on estimates of intergenerational mobility.

In this paper, I use the expansion of the US railroad network from 1900 to 1910 and the resulting spatial variation in increased market access to investigate whether economic shocks that occur during childhood have long-run ramifications on later-life outcomes, and the channels through which such effects manifest. I link individuals across the 1900, 1910, and 1940 full-count US Censuses and incorporate an instrumental variable strategy to help isolate the causal effect of market access. I find that, in the short run, sons are less likely to be literate and have more siblings. In the long-run, these sons then become less likely to be well-educated and earn lower incomes. The results of this paper shed light on the mechanisms through which railroad-induced market access and other economic shocks during childhood can impact individuals even in later life.

The longstanding view in US economic history is that the shift in manufacturing in the nineteenth century from the hand labor artisan shop to the machine labor of the mechanized factory led to “labor de-skilling” – the substitution of less skilled workers, such as operatives, for skilled craft workers. Investigating the Department of Labor's 1899 Hand and Machine Labor Study, we show the adoption of inanimate power, which we call “mechanization,” did induce de-skilling at the production operation level. However, while the treatment effect of mechanization was economically and statistically significant, it accounted for only 16 percent of the de-skilling on average in the sample, using our preferred IV estimator. Broadening the scope of our inquiry, we find that variations in the division of labor, as captured by the share of production tasks performed by the average worker, accounted for a substantially larger fraction.

Thousands of prospectuses offered shares to British investors at the turn of the twentieth century. We find evidence that there were informed investors who participated in the market at this time. Firms that attracted additional investor demand were more likely to be listed on the London Stock Exchange, survive longer, and achieve better long-run equity returns. We find that the exchange screened lower quality firms away from the main board. The lowest quality firms sorted themselves and did not apply to either the London Stock Exchange main or second board.

Romans rewarded skill in material terms, and wage data reflects this. This study develops a method for understanding the return on skilling in the Roman period, starting from internal pay scales observed in Egyptian documents. These data reveal a modal premium of 100 and mean of 74. Roman-period returns on training compare favorably with evidence from outside Egypt, especially detailed pay scales in Diocletian's Price Edict, thus suggesting a broader Empire-wide premium. This Roman skill premium is then compared with a selection of data from other premodern periods, which show that the relative price of skill in ancient Rome was not historically atypical, despite the particularly high levels of enslavement and urbanization characteristic of the Roman economy. The return on investments in training during the Empire can be seen to reflect both numeracy practices and developing market conditions for skill.

This article evaluates the high-profile claim that enslaved African-Americans produced over 50 percent of US national product in the pre-Civil War period. The accounting exercise shows the fraction was closer to (and indeed likely slightly below) the share of the population, that is, about 12.6 percent in 1860. The enslaved population had higher rates of labor force participation, but they were also forced to work in sectors–agriculture and domestic service—with below average output per worker. The economic surplus generated by the enslaved was due chiefly to the low value of the very basic consumption bundle provided rather than to exceptionally high values of production per capita.

What is the role of access to land for the decision to emigrate? We consider the case of Denmark between 1868 and 1908, when a large number of people left for America. We exploit the fact that the Danish agrarian reforms between 1784 and 1807 had differential impacts on the class of landless laborers around the country, and use detailed parish-level data police protocols of emigrants; population censuses and land registers to show that areas with a more unequal distribution of land witnessed greater emigration. We demonstrate a sizable effect: a one standard deviation increase in the Theil index implies an increase in emigration of 18 percent above the mean.

China made phenomenal progress in science and technology during the long twentieth century. However, in the literature, there are contrasting opinions on the role Confucianism played here. To answer the question regarding whether Confucianism served as a stumbling block or a stepping stone, we must first disentangle some of the multifaceted connotations of “Confucianism,” such as its worldviews, learning traditions, and “the teaching of Confucius” in a religious sense. The sectarian division of Confucian learning, particularly Neo-Confucianism and evidential learning, which corresponded to Song learning and revived Han learning in the Qing context, respectively, is given special consideration. We exploit several rare datasets of scientists and engineers for the era of the modern period and contemporary times, as well as data on the first wave of the new-style schools, measures of Neo-Confucianism, and the spatial distribution of prolific evidential scholars. We then show that the accumulation of human capital due to the imperial examination system and evidential scholarship contributed to the rise of modern science in China, whereas Confucian values as represented by various Neo-Confucian measures did not.

The growth of public transport networks in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries had profound effects on commuting in the industrialized world, yet the consequences for labor markets during this important period of historical development remains largely unstudied. This paper draws on a unique dataset combining individual commuting and wage information for working-class residents of London, circa 1930, to analyze, for the first time, the nature of and returns to commuting shortly after when networks were first built. A sizeable majority of working-class Londoners worked within a short walk of their residence in 1890. By 1930, over 70 percent commuted at least one kilometer. Commuting allowed workers to search for jobs over a wider geographic area and across a larger number of potential employers. This, in turn, potentially increased workers’ bargaining power and improved employer-employee matching. We show that wage returns to commuting were on the order of 1.5–3.5 percent per kilometer travelled. Access to public transport increased both the probability of commuting and distance commuted but had little or no direct effect on the probability of being employed or on earnings. We argue that these results are consistent with a search and matching framework; commuting led to workers finding jobs more suited to their skills and to better matches with employers. We also provide descriptive evidence from contemporary sources to describe the impact of commuting on improving quality of life by reducing urban crowding.

This paper presents evidence that firms had labor market power during the early 1930s. Using plant-level data from the Census of Manufactures between 1929 and 1935, I construct a Herfindahl-Hirschman Index of local labor market concentration at the State-Economic-Area-by-industry-by-occupation level. I find that local labor market concentration has a negative relationship with wages which is consistent with labor market monopsony power. The results are robust to excluding local labor markets with one firm, excluding industries with local product markets, as well as the inclusion of industry characteristic, SEA, and occupational time trends. I find evidence that New Deal minimum wage policies weakened monopsony power. I also find suggestive evidence that high unemployment rates during 1930 reduced workers’ bargaining power.