An inability to borrow affected migration from Europe to North America. This capital constraint is formalized with a life-cycle model, where agents jointly choose how much to save, the optimal period to finance migration, and whether to migrate. Using a life-cycle model we show that preference...

Based largely on the Fifteenth Annual Report of the U.S. Department of Labor, published in 1900, we have built a sample of wages and hours for roughly fifty countries in six continents that covers the period 1890-1900. The Report, which is drawn from official (national) publications, gives...

This paper re-examines the agriculture of Lower Canada with an emphasis on geographic variation in efficiency. The paper estimates agricultural output per worker by county using census data for 1851. We find only limited support for the factors emphasized in the literature. We find no great...

This paper develops an alternative to the Nerlovian model of settlement, by simulating the extension of the feasible region of cultivation. The model is applied to a wheat-growing area of Saskatchewan that experience rapid settlement from 1898-1911. Comparisons of actual wheat cultivation with...

Building on the work of McCalla, McInnis and others we describe the early income of Upper Canada over the period 1826 to 1851. The Municipal Assessments, which report ownership of land, livestock and other property, allow us to develop conjectural estimates of farm income; and various Provincial...

The impact of investment in education on wage rates is computed for 1870-1900 in urban and rural areas of the United States. The impact of the investment on wage rates is determined for rates of return to education of 10%, 15% and 20%. For a 15% rate of return, urban workers had an earnings...

This paper investigates the economics of the transition of land from rural to urban use. A simple model examines the developer's problem: when and at what density should vacant land be developed to maximize the present value of land. Simple rules emerge relating the timing and density of new...