Reexamining the Distribution of Wealth in 1870

This paper uses data on real and personal property ownership collected in the 1870 Federal Census to explore factors influencing individual wealth accumulation and the aggregate distribution of wealth in the United States near the middle of the nineteenth century. Previous analyses of these data have relied on relatively small samples, or focused on population subgroups. By using the much larger sample available in the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) we are able to disaggregate the data much more finely than has previously been possible allowing us to explore differences in inequality across space and between different population groups. The data provide strong support for the hypothesis that American industrialization during the nineteenth century resulted in increasing inequality in the distribution of wealth.

The Decline and Rise of Interstate Migration in the United States: Evidence from the IPUMS, 1850-1990

We examine evidence on trends in interstate migration over the past 150 years, using data from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series of the U.S. Census (IPUMS). Two measures of migration are calculated. The first considers an individual to have moved if she is residing in a state different from her state of birth. The second considers a family to have moved if it is residing in a state different from the state of birth of one of its young children. The latter measure allows us estimate the timing of moves more accurately. Our results suggest that overall migration propensities have followed a U-shaped trend since 1850, falling until around 1900 and then rising until around 1970. We examine variation in the propensity to make an interstate move by age, sex, race, nativity, region of origin, family structure, and education. Counterfactuals based on probit estimates of the propensity to migrate suggest that the rise in migration of families since 1900 is largely attributable to increased educational attainment. The decline of interstate migration in the late nineteenth century remains to be explained.

Idiopathic Short Stature: Conundrums of Definition and Treatment

Children with idiopathic short stature (ISS) are statistically defined by height SDS < −2 for their bone age and should be distinguished from children with familial short stature for whom height SDS corresponds to mean parental SDS and from the most common explanation for short stature referred to pediatric endocrinologists, constitutional delay in growth and maturation (CDGM), in which there is normal height for bone age and predicted normal adult stature. Low IGF-I levels reported in ISS may be the result of subtle undernutrition or reference to standards appropriate for chronologic age but not osseous maturation in CDGM inappropriately labeled as ISS. While growth hormone (GH) treatment of ISS may add 4-5 cm to adult height, meta-analysis indicates that there is no documented evidence that such treatment improves health related quality of life or psychological adaptation. Thus, the estimated cost of US$52 000/inch gained is difficult to justify. Absence of data regarding efficacy of the use of IGF-I for treatment of ISS has been noted in a recent consensus statement from the North American and European pediatric endocrinology societies. This report further emphasizes the importance of discouraging the expectation that taller stature from GH treatment will improve quality of life

Loyalism in Massachusetts: The Characteristics and Motivations of the Harvard Loyalists

Historians have tended to approach the American Revolution from the perspective of its winners. They have tried to understand the causes and consequences of the war in terms of the attitudes, perceptions and actions of the revolutionaries. Although this approach had been very fruitful, the focus on the reasons for a revolution has obscured the possibility that any sensible, right-thinking American could have opposed the Revolution. There has long been an interest, however, in those colonists who did not support the Revolution. Recently, historians have sought to explain the motivation of these loyalists as a result of the characteristics and interests common to the social, economic, or geographical groups that were most frequently opposed to the Revolution. William Nelson, for example, suggested that rank and file loyalists tended to be members of economic or cultural minorities. Thus, their loyalism could be explained by their greater fear of dominance by a local majority than their fear of continued British rule. Nelson also studied the leaders of the loyalists, finding them to be distinguished from their ,more patriotic contemporaries by a dependence on Britain for their political authority, Other historians, like Wallace Brown and Leonard Labaree, have focused on the loyalists\u27 occupations, government office holding and religious affiliations as important characteristics. Finding that the loyalists were frequently merchants, lawyers, royal officials and Anglicans they have suggested that these were the significant factors in their loyalism. The loyalists were, in this view, motivated by a combination of close ties to Britain and economic and political self-interest

Labor Market Institutions and the Geographic Integration of Labor Markets in the Late Nineteenth-Century United States

DOI: 10.1017/S002205070003659

The Costs and Benefits of Growth: Lawrence, Kansas, 1990-2003

Since 1990 employment in the city of Lawrence, Kansas has grown by 34 percent, nearly three times as fast as the state as a whole. Such rapid growth both creates economic benefits for residents and increases the cost of city services. This paper shows that the main beneficiaries of rapid growth were homeowners, who realized capital gains because of the increasing real estate values. Local workers experienced little or no improvement in relative wage levels or reduced chances of unemployment because job growth resulted in substantial population migration. On the cost side, city expenditures nearly doubled in real terms since 1990. This rise in spending was financed primarily through increased sales tax revenues and higher charges for city services. Thus the burden of increased spending was distributed more widely than the benefits of rising property values. The extent to which the rise in city expenditures is directly attributable to increased population cannot be determined without further investigation into the changes in the quality of city services provided

Strikebreaking and the Labor Market in the United States, 1881-1894

Using data from a sample of over 2,000 individual strikes in the United States from 1881 to 1894 this article examines geographic, industrial, and temporal variations in the use of strikebreakers and the sources from which they were recruited. The use of strikebreakers was not correlated with the business cycle and did not vary appreciably by region or city size, but employers located outside the Northeast or in smaller cities were more likely to use replacement workers recruited from other places. The use of strikebreakers also varied considerably across industries, and was affected by union authorization and strike size