Regional differences in real wages: The United States, 1851–1880

Coelho, Philip R. P.; Shepherd, James F.

doi:10.1016/0014-4983(76)90026-7

Cited by 54 publications

(9 citation statements)

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“…The data come from various published and archival sources. While the sources I use do not exhaust all relevant ones (see, for example, Coehlo and Shepherd 1976), I believe my selection is broadly representative and, in any case, more comprehensive than those examined in previous work (for example, Wright 1986). Some of the wage estimates are seasoned in that they have been available for some time and thus subject to professional scrutiny.…”

Section: Wage Levels and Regional Wage Gapsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The North-South Wage Gap, Before and After the Civil War

Margo¹

2002

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In an economy with "national" factor markets, the factor price effects of a permanent, regional specific shock register everywhere, perhaps with a brief lag. The United States in the nineteenth century does not appear to have been such an economy. Using data for a variety of occupations, I document that the Civil War occasioned a dramatic divergence in the regional structure of wages --in particular, wages in the South Atlantic and South Central states relative to the North fell sharply after the War. The divergence was immediate, being apparent as early as 1866. It was persistent: for none of the occupations examined did the regional wage structure return to its ante-bellum configuration by century's end. The divergence cannot be explained by the changing racial composition of the Southern wage labor force after the War, but does appear consistent with a sharp drop in labor productivity in Southern agriculture. I also use previously neglected data to argue that the South probably experienced a decline in the relative price of non-traded goods after the War.

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Section: Wage Levels and Regional Wage Gapsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The North-South Wage Gap, Before and After the Civil War

Margo¹

2002

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“…This article examines the responses of labor market participants and intermediaries to the opportunities and challenges created by late-nineteenth-century economic growth, and the market institutions that their responses fostered. As the subsequent account reveals, understanding the historical and social constraints within which these market institutions developed helps to explain both the overall success of the labor market in responding to the shifting locations of labor demand and supply during the late-nineteenth-century industrialization, and the failure of the labor market to significantly reduce the persistent and large intercity and interregional real wage differentials in this period (Rosenbloom 1990b;Coelho and Shepherd 1976).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Looking for Work, Searching for Workers: U.S. Labor Markets after the Civil War

Rosenbloom¹

1994

Social Science History

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“…Average fertility, however, does not decline as much as in the US data: 20% vis à vis 50%. This discrepancy is mostly due toc which affects both the level of fertility and its reaction to 13 The source for the wage ratio is Coelho and Shepherd (1976) and Margo (2000). The source for the stock of improved land is Gallman (1986).…”

Section: Calibrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The American frontier: Technology versus immigration

Vandenbroucke

2008

Review of Economic Dynamics

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How important was international immigration for the US and its demography during the nineteenth century? This paper investigates, quantitatively, its effect on the westward movement of population and the regional and secular changes in fertility. Beside immigration, two alternative forces are considered: technological progress and the land policy (the Homestead Act). An optimal growth model with endogenous fertility and migration is calibrated, and counterfactual experiments reveal that the main driving forces were productivity growth and the declining cost of transportation. International immigration played a lesser role.

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Regional differences in real wages: The United States, 1851–1880

Cited by 54 publications

References 0 publications

The North-South Wage Gap, Before and After the Civil War

The North-South Wage Gap, Before and After the Civil War

Looking for Work, Searching for Workers: U.S. Labor Markets after the Civil War

The American frontier: Technology versus immigration

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