Showing 1 - 10 of 189
"Is inequality largely the result of the Industrial Revolution? Or, were pre-industrial incomes and life expectancies as unequal as they are today? For want of sufficient data, these questions have not yet been answered. This paper infers inequality for 14 ancient, pre-industrial societies using...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010521497
The safety nets in high-income countries before 1900 and in low-income countries today were based on savings and aid from extended family, friends, charities, churches, and small amounts from local governments. Mutual societies and eventually insurance companies offered insurance against lost...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013210095
We present estimates of home ownership for African-American and white households from 1870 to 2007. The estimates pertain to a sample of households headed by adult men participating in the labor force but the substantive findings are unchanged if the analysis is extended to all households. Over...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012461992
The growing education and employment of women are usually cited as crucial forces behind the decline of marriage since 1960. However, both trends were already present between 1900 and 1960, during which time marriage became increasingly widespread. This early period differed from the post-1960...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012462497
Living arrangements have changed enormously over the last two centuries. While the average American today lives in a household of only three people, in 1850 household size was twice that figure. Further, both the number of children and the number of adults in a household have fallen...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012463172
This paper considers the extent to which crime in the 19th century was conditioned on body weight. With data on inmates incarcerated in the Tennessee and Illinois state penitentiaries between 1831 and 1892, we estimate the parameters of Wiebull proportional hazard specifications of the...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012463551
The entry of married women into the labor force is one of the most notable economic phenomena of the twentieth century. We argue that medical progress played a critical role in this process. Improved maternal health alleviated the adverse effects of pregnancy and childbirth on women's ability to...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012463775
There were substantial fluctuations in the numbers of American overseas travelers, especially before World War II. These fluctuations in travel around the robust, long term upward trend are the focus of this paper. We first identify those fluctuations in the raw data and then try to explain the...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012463801
Political future markets, in which investors bet on election outcomes, are often thought a recent invention. Such markets in fact have a long history in many Western countries. This paper traces the operation of political futures markets back to 16th Century Italy, 18th Century Britain, and 19th...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012464270
The nineteenth century witnessed dramatic improvements in the legal rights of married women. Given that these changes took place long before women gained the right to vote, they amounted to a voluntary renouncement of power by men. In this paper, we investigate men's incentives for sharing power...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012464728