Faculty working papers
Description
Most previous studies of the distribution of wealth during the nineteenth century have focussed either upon the slave South or the urban North. This paper on the other hand examines the distribution of wealth in 102 rural townships in sixteen northern states. The sample covers 21,118 rural households and is representative of twenty northern states. Wealth was found to be more evenly distributed in the rural North than in either the urban North or slave South. Despite this, the distribution of wealth was far from egalitarian and levels of wealth were found to be heavily dependent upon age, sex, race, education, occupation and birthplace.
How the series evolves
Books in this Series
The influence of population growth on per-worker income in developed economies
The survivor technique and identification of optimal plant size using individual plant data
Keynesian unemployment, Wicksellian interest, and neoclassical growth -- a synthesis
The diffusion and adoption of the steam engine in manufacturing industry during the nineteenth century
The 'Egalitarian Ideal' and the distribution of wealth in the northern agricultural community
Most previous studies of the distribution of wealth during the nineteenth century have focussed either upon the slave South or the urban North. This paper on the other hand examines the distribution of wealth in 102 rural townships in sixteen northern states. The sample covers 21,118 rural households and is representative of twenty northern states. Wealth was found to be more evenly distributed in the rural North than in either the urban North or slave South. Despite this, the distribution of wealth was far from egalitarian and levels of wealth were found to be heavily dependent upon age, sex, race, education, occupation and birthplace.
The price-wage spiral
"The paper opens the neoclassical growth model to unemployment and inflation and solves for steady-state equilibrium rates of growth and interest. A price equation is dervied from profit maximization and includes the wage expectations of the entrepreneurs. A wage equation is based on the Phillips function and includes the price expectations of labor. A price-wage equilibrium is defined as self-fulfilling expectations. The existence and the properties of such an equilibrium are examined. Policy conclusions are drawn. Finally, the paper determines the extent to which Wiksellian, Keynesian, and monetarist ideas may coexist in neoclassical growth."