Article
Wealth Mobility in the 1860s
Economics Working Papers
Publication Date
9-18-2020
Number
20018
Abstract
We offer new evidence on the regional dynamics of wealth holding in the United States over the Civil War decade based on a hand-linked random sample of wealth holders drawn from the 1860 census. Despite the wealth shock caused by emancipation, we find that patterns of wealth mobility were broadly similar for northern and southern residents in 1860. Looking at the determinants of individual wealth holding in 1870, we find that the elasticity with respect to 1860 wealth was quite low in both regions—consistent with high levels of wealth mobility.
Version History
Original Release Date: September 18, 2020
Disciplines
Departments
Department of Economics, Iowa State University
File Format
application/pdf
Length
32 pages
Citation Information
Brandon Dupont and Joshua L. Rosenbloom. "Wealth Mobility in the 1860s" (2020) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/joshua_rosenbloom/55/