What motivated men to risk death in the most horrific war in U. S. history when pay was low and irregular and military punishment strategies were weak? In such a situation creating group loyalty by promoting social capital is of paramount importance and in the Civil War was the cement of both...

Explanations for the decline in labor force participation rates of older men prior to 1950 have focused on the sectoral shift from agriculture to manufacturing. Labor force participation rates of men living in farm households have been consistently higher than those of men living in non-farm...

I investigate why workers' probability of leaving unemployment has fallen since 1900 by estimating the impact of a large government transfer, the first major pension program in the United States, covering Union Army veterans of the Civil War. The pension, because of the program's rules, was a...

We present evidence showing that the course of economic growth and of health, as measured by stature, Body Mass Index (BMI), mortality rates, or the prevalence of chronic conditions, diverged in the nineteenth century and converged in the twentieth. To analyze the change in welfare resulting...

College educated couples are increasingly located in large metropolitan areas. These areas were home to 32 percent of all college educated couples in 1940, 39 percent in 1970, and 50 percent in 1990. We investigate whether this trend can be explained by increasing urbanization of the college...