Showing 1 - 10 of 179
This essay is the companion piece to about 550 individual data series on education to be included in the updated Historical Statistics of the United States, Millennial Edition (Cambridge University Press 2000, forthcoming). The essay reviews the broad outlines of U.S. educational history from...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013230627
There is a strong, positive and well-documented correlation between education and health outcomes. There is much less evidence on the extent to which this correlation reflects the causal effect of education on health - the parameter of interest for policy. In this paper we attempt to overcome...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013143175
The Catholic Church has been making saints for centuries, typically in a two-stage process featuring beatification and canonization. We analyze determinants of rates of beatification and canonization (for non-martyrs) over time and across six world regions. The research uses a recently assembled...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013130549
Trends in BMI values are estimated by centiles of the US adult population by birth cohorts 1886-1986 stratified by ethnicity. The highest centile increased by some 18 to 22 units in the course of the century while the lowest ones increased by merely 1 to 3 units. Hence, the BMI distribution...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013139523
The introduction of the direct reduction (fully-amortized) loan contract to the U.S. residential mortgage market is an important instance of financial innovation. We describe the adoption of this contract within the building and loan (B&L) industry beginning in the 1880s and culminating in the...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013100674
This paper examines sovereign lending to Latin America and the Caribbean from 1820 to 1913. We examine four waves of capital flows where defaults were followed by a return to market access. In spite of extended default, countries kept promising high returns that attracted international investors...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013100987
The empirical literature on economic growth and development has moved from the study of proximate determinants to the analysis of ever deeper, more fundamental factors, rooted in long-term history. A growing body of new empirical work focuses on the measurement and estimation of the effects of...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013105459
This handbook chapter seeks to document the economic forces that led the US to become an urban nation over its two hundred year history. We show that the urban wage premium in the US was remarkably stable over the past two centuries, ranging between 15 and 40 percent, while the rent premium was...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013082149
Share prices of modern corporations are influenced by the size and structure of boards of directors, large individual and institutional investors, and shareholder voting rights, among other governance features. It is not clear whether the same features mattered historically, given recent...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013083396
The mandate of the Federal Reserve has evolved considerably over its hundred-year history. From an initial focus in 1913 on financial stability, to fiscal financing in World War II and its aftermath, to a strong anti-inflation focus from the late 1970s, and then back to greater emphasis on...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013085126