The Farm, the City and the Emergence of Social Security

In this paper we study the social, demographic and economic origins of social security. The data for the U.S. and for a cross section of countries make it clear that urbanization and industrialization are strongly associated with the rise of social insurance. We describe a model economy in which demographics, technology, and social security are linked together. We study an economy with two locations (sectors), the farm (agricultural) and the city (industrial). The decision to migrate from rural to urban locations is endogenous and linked to productivity differences between the two locations and survival probabilities. Furthermore, the level of social security is determined by majority voting. We show that a calibrated version of this economy is consistent with the historical transformation in the United States. Initially a majority of voters live on the farm and do not want to implement social security. Once a majority of the voters move to the city, the median voter prefers a positive social security tax. In the model social security emerges and is sustained over time as a political and economic equilibrium. Modeling the political economy of social security within a model of structural change leads to a rich economic environment in which the median voter is identified by both age and location

The Farm, the City, and the Emergence of Social Security

In this paper we study the social, demographic and economic origins of social security. The data for the U.S. and for a cross section of countries make it clear that urbanization and industrialization are strongly associated with the rise of social insurance. We describe a model economy in which demographics, technology, and social security are linked together. We study an economy with two locations (sectors), the farm (agricultural) and the city (industrial). The decision to migrate from rural to urban locations is endogenous and linked to productivity differences between the two locations and survival probabilities. Furthermore, the level of social security is determined by majority voting. We show that a calibrated version of this economy is consistent with the historical transformation in the United States. Initially a majority of voters live on the farm and do not want to implement social security. Once a majority of the voters move to the city, the median voter prefers a positive social security tax. In the model social security emerges and is sustained over time as a political and economic equilibrium. Modeling the political economy of social security within a model of structural change leads to a rich economic environment in which the median voter is identified by both age and location.social security, political economy, structural change, migration

Lake Superior Mining Co. v. Catharine Erickson

Where a mining company let a contract for taking out a certain quantity of ore, but employed persons of supposed skill to watch for dangers from loosened rocks, and in other ways retained a control over the mode of mining, and a servant of the contractors was killed by the falling of a rock, the danger from which ought to have been detected and guarded against: Held, that the mining company was responsible

David Maynard et al v. Fractional School District, & c.

A bequest to the members composing the School District by name, and to their successors in office, of moneys to be expended in the purchase of books for a district library -- thy being the officers designated by law to preform similar duties for the district -- is in effect a bequest to the district. Lucy M. Maynard by her last will directed the residue of her estate be sold and the monies be placed at the disposal of the District Board of the Fractional School District in Milan and York, Michigan, and used for library supplies. The validity of this bequest was attacked by two of the heirs at law

A Treatise on the Constitutional Limitations Which Rest Upon the Legislative Power of the States of the American Union

In the Preface to the first edition of this work. the author stated its purpose to be, to furnish to the practitioner and the student of the law such a presentation of elementary constitutional principles as should serve, with the aid of its references to judicial decisions, legal treatises, and historical events, as a convenient guide in the examination of questions respecting the constitutional limitations which rest upon the power of the several State legislatures. … The second edition being exhausted, the author, in preparing a third, has endeavored to give full references to such decisions as have recently been made or reported, having a bearing upon the points discussed.https://repository.law.umich.edu/books/1049/thumbnail.jp

Incidental Injuries from Exercise of Lawful Rights

In the present paper those cases will be considered in which one person suffers an injury in consequence of the exercise by another person of his legal rights. Many such cases occur in which, although the injury may be severe, the law will award no compensation, there being no tort in the case because there is an absence of that wrong the concurrence of which with damage is essential to an action. Negligence might supply the wrong, but we now speak of cases of which that is not an element

The British Colonial System

Regarding the subject, Professor Cooley writes: In a note to the first book of these Commentaries (p.109), the Colonial System of Great Britain is spoken of as the grandest in extent and power that the world has ever known. A more detailed account of the system, and of the countries and places embraced within it, than was given in the place referred to, will justify the statement there made, and at the same time will give us particulars of British Colonial government in all its varieties