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Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Title: Irregular Production and Time-out-of-Work in American Manufacturing Industry in 1870 and 1880: Some Preliminary Estimates
Classification-JEL: J64; N31
Author-Name: Jeremy Atack
Author-Person: pat28
Author-Name: Fred Bateman
Note: DAE
Number: 0069
Creation-Date: 1995-06
Order-URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/h0069
File-URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/h0069.pdf
File-Format: application/pdf
Abstract: This paper makes use of hitherto untabulated data from the censuses of manufacturing for 1870 and 1880 to investigate the extent to which firms operated at less than their full capacity year round in these census years and thus provides some evidence of the extent to which workers may have faced temporary or permanent lay-off. We conclude that firms nationwide operated for the equivalent of 254 days (out of, perhaps, 309 working days) during the 1870 census year from the end of May, 1869 to the beginning of June, 1870 and 261 days during the 1880 census year from the beginning of June 1879 to the end of May, 1880. Workers put in the equivalent of slightly more days of work in each of these years in their customary industrial employment because larger firms were more likely to operate for more days per year. There were, however, significant regional and industry differences. Although our estimates are broadly consistent with independent estimates and are generally in accord with expectations, they raise important questions about economic performance in the late nineteenth century which remain unanswered here.
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberhi:0069
Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Title: Fertility and Marriage in New York State in the Era of the Civil War
Author-Name: Michael R. Haines
Author-Person: pha740
Author-Name: Avery M. Guest
Note: DAE
Number: 0070
Creation-Date: 1995-07
Order-URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/h0070
File-URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/h0070.pdf
File-Format: application/pdf
Abstract: This paper analyzes a five percent systematic sample of households from the manuscripts of the New York State Census of 1865 for seven counties (Allegany, Dutchess, Montgomery, Rensselaer, Steuben, Tompkins, and Warren). The sample was selected to provide a diversity of locations, settlement dates, and types of agricultural economy. Two substantial urban areas (the cities of Troy and Poughkeepsie) are in the sample. This census was the first in the United States to ask a question on children ever born. These parity data, along with own-children estimates of age-specific overall and marital fertility rates, are used to examine the relation of fertility with rural-urban residence, occupation, ethnicity, literacy, and location within the state. Singulate mean ages at first marriage and other nuptiality measures are also estimated. The parity data provide direct evidence of fertility decline in the United States during the first half of the nineteenth century. Township data are added to the individual records to provide contextual variables. The issue of ideational versus socioeconomic and structural factors in fertility is discussed.
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberhi:0070
Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Title: A New Sample of Americans Linked from the 1850 Public Use Micro Sampleofthe Federal Census of Population to the1860 Federal Census Manuscript Sched.
Classification-JEL: N01; N31
Author-Name: Joseph P. Ferrie
Note: DAE
Number: 0071
Creation-Date: 1995-08
Order-URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/h0071
File-URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/h0071.pdf
File-Format: application/pdf
Abstract: Though the geographic, occupational, and financial mobility of average Americans were important aspects of nineteenth century U.S. economic development, the extent and correlates of this economic mobility have remained open to debate in the absence of individual- level longitudinal data. This essay describes a new sample of 4,837 individuals linked from the 1850 Public Use Micro Sample of the federal census of population to the 1860 federal census manuscript schedules, using the new national 1860 federal census index. The linked sample provides information on occupation, wealth, family structure, and location in both 1850 and 1860. The construction of the sample is described in detail, along with tests of its representativeness and examples of potential uses.
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberhi:0071
Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Title: The Farm-Nonfarm Wage Gap in the Antebellum United States: Evidence fromthe 1850 and 1860 Censuses of Social Statistics
Classification-JEL: N31
Author-Name: Robert A. Margo
Author-Person: pma319
Note: DAE
Number: 0072
Creation-Date: 1995-08
Order-URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/h0072
File-URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/h0072.pdf
File-Format: application/pdf
Abstract: Sectoral wage gaps for workers of comparable skill are central to issues in economic development and economic history. This paper presents new archival evidence on the farm-nonfarm wage gap for the United States just prior to the American Civil War. Measured at the level of local labor markets, the wage gaps are small and not very persistent over time. Aggregated to reflect the geographic distribution of farm and nonfarm labor, the gaps are larger than previously thought. I also show that investment in manufacturing capital between 1850 and 1860 responded to labor market inefficiencies indicated by the gaps: counties with relatively low farm wages experienced above-average investment.
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberhi:0072
Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Title: Myth of the Industrial Scrap Heap: A Revisionist View of Turn-of-the- Century American Retirement
Author-Name: Susan B. Carter
Author-Name: Richard Sutch
Note: DAE
Number: 0073
Creation-Date: 1995-10
Order-URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/h0073
File-URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/h0073.pdf
File-Format: application/pdf
Publication-Status: published as Carter, Susan B. and Richard Sutch. "Myth Of The Industrial Scrap Heap: A Revisionist View Of Turn-Of-The-Century American Retirement," Journal of Economic History, 1996, v56(1,Mar), 5-38.
Abstract: Using the census survival method to calculate net flows across employment states between 1900 and 1910, we find that approximately one-fifth of all men who reached the age of 55 eventually retired before their death. Many of these retirees appear to have planned their withdrawal from paid employment by accumulating assets, becoming self-employed, and then liquidating their assets to provide a stream of income to finance consumption in old age. This `modern' retirement behavior, we argue, has important implications for the economic history of capital and labor markets, of saving and investment, of insurance and pensions, and of the family economy.
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberhi:0073
Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Title: Fixing the Facts: Editing of the 1880 U.S. Census of Occupations with Implications for Long-Term Trends and the Sociology of Official Statistics
Author-Name: Susan B. Carter
Author-Name: Richard Sutch
Note: DAE
Number: 0074
Creation-Date: 1995-10
Order-URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/h0074
File-URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/h0074.pdf
File-Format: application/pdf
Abstract: We argue that the enumerators' occupational returns from the important census of 1880 were heavily edited prior to publication. The effect was to substantially reduce the number of individuals reported with an occupation. For youthful and older males and all women the editing was so substantial as to qualitatively affect the apparent trend in labor force participation for these groups over time. The stylized facts regarding labor market dynamics during the period of American industrialization and the historical stories constructed around them will now need to be reexamined. We contend that the editing was secretly authorized by Francis Amasa Walker, Superintendent of the Tenth Census of 1880 and one of the most prominent and decorated economists, statisticians, and public servants in America at this time. While other scholars have identified potential sources of bias in census figures, no one has heretofore suggested that the official statistics of the United States were covertly altered to present a picture different from information collected by census enumerators. If we are correct, the sociology of official nineteenth-century American statistics will require rethinking.
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberhi:0074
Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Title: Percentiles of Modern Height Standards for Use in Historical Research
Author-Name: Richard H. Steckel
Author-Person: pst352
Note: DAE
Number: 0075
Creation-Date: 1995-10
Order-URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/h0075
File-URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/h0075.pdf
File-Format: application/pdf
Abstract: Percentiles of modern height standards are useful in historical research because children differ systematically in height by age, and differences in growth potential exist by gender and might exist across some ethnic groups. Modern height standards are needed to make relative comparisons of nutritional status in these circumstances. The standards are also used to assess progress or deprivation against a level that we know is attainable under good environmental circumstances. Historical researchers in need of modern height standards encounter several problems, including the choice of standards, manipulation of those standards to meet the requirements of historical data, and calculation of percentiles. Following a discussion of criteria used in selecting standards, which lead to the choice of NCHS heights as a reference, the paper gives percentiles calculated in line with the requirements of historical data. Results are given in centimeters and inches and by age at last birthday and age at nearest birthday.
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberhi:0075
Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Title: Long-Term Trends in Health, Welfare, and Economic Growth in the United States
Classification-JEL: N31; J11
Author-Name: Dora L. Costa
Author-Person: pco358
Author-Name: Richard H. Steckel
Author-Person: pst352
Note: DAE
Number: 0076
Creation-Date: 1995-11
Order-URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/h0076
File-URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/h0076.pdf
File-Format: application/pdf
Publication-Status: published as Steckel, Richard H. and Roderick Floud (eds.) Health and Welfare During Industrialization. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997.
Publication-Status: published as Long-Term Trends in Health, Welfare, and Economic Growth in the United States, Dora Costa, Richard H. Steckel. in Health and Welfare during Industrialization, Steckel and Floud. 1997
Abstract: 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 from changes in health, we estimate a Human Development Index and a Borda Ranking and we calculate Usher- adjusted incomes and the willingness to pay for a reduction in mortality risk. Prior to the Civil War the increase in income was insufficient to compensate for the decline in health, whereas improvements in health outpaced economic growth in the twentieth century. We identify numerous possible causes of the nineteenth century decline in health, including greater exposure to disease, hardship created by the Civil War, and rising inequality. Our evidence on trends in waist-hip ratio, BMI, and the prevalence of chronic conditions at older ages suggests that early life conditions may exert an impact on mortality and morbidity that is not manifest until older ages. The dramatic twentieth century improvement in early life conditions implies that cohorts who are now approaching their sixties will experience a much greater rate of increase in health and longevity than past generations.
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberhi:0076
Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Title: From Plowshares to Swords: The American Economy in World War II
Classification-JEL: N12
Author-Name: Hugh Rockoff
Author-Person: pro65
Note: DAE
Number: 0077
Creation-Date: 1995-12
Order-URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/h0077
File-URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/h0077.pdf
File-Format: application/pdf
Abstract: This paper examines the U.S. economy in World War II. It argues that the mobilization must be viewed as a rapidly evolving historical process rather than, as is often the case a single undifferentiated event. For example, the employment of unemployed resources, a factor often cited to explain the success of the mobilization, was important during the national defense period, but was relatively unimportant during the period of active U.S. involvement. On the financial side, money creation was more important during the first year of active involvement than in subsequent years. The most significant legacy of the war, viewed in relation to the prosperous era that followed, may have been the change in the macroeconomic regime. The paper also discusses the limitations of the basic time series.
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberhi:0077