TY  - JOUR
AU  - Hutchinson,William
AU  - Margo,Robert A.
TI  - The Impact of the Civil War on Capital Intensity and Labor Productivity in Southern Manufacturing
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 10886
PY  - 2004
Y2  - November 2004
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10886
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10886.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Robert A. Margo
Department of Economics
Boston University
270 Bay State Road
Boston, MA 02215
Tel: 617/353-6819
Fax: 617/343-8495
E-Mail: margora@bu.edu
AB  - The Civil War resulted in a substantial divergence in the regional structure of factor prices. In particular, wages fell in the South relative to the non-South, but interest rates and other measures of the costs of capital increased. Using archival data for manufacturing establishments, we show that capital-output and capital-labor ratios in southern manufacturing declined relative to non-southern manufacturing after the War, precisely in the direction implied by the regional shifts in factor prices. Labor productivity in Southern manufacturing also declined, but this decline is explained by the reduction in capital intensity.
ER  -