Longitudinal Micro Data for the Study of Long Run Changes in Economic Mobility in the U.S., 1850-1990

尽管经济学家近年来对经济流动性的模式给予了相当大的关注，但收入和财富分配以及职业等级内的历史流动模式受到的审查较少。这是缺乏合适的纵向数据的结果，就像在收入动态小组研究(PSID)和国家纵向调查(NLS)等当代来源中发现的那样。该项目将继续为十九世纪下半叶创建这类数据。之前的支持使得创建一个新的5000名美国男性样本成为可能，该样本与1850年和1860年的联邦人口普查有关，并在1860年和1870年联邦人口普查的7000名美国男性样本的基础上取得了实质性进展。这些新样本让人们对美国内战前后几年的经济流动性有了独特的认识。它们使研究财富流动、职业变化和地理流动(特别是移民到边境)在促进经济机会方面的作用成为可能。该项目将完成19世纪30年纵向数据的创建，从而能够完成1860-1870年的样本(现在大约完成了2/3)，并将1880年公共使用微量样本中的3,200名男性与1870年手稿人口普查时间表联系起来。由于最近创建了1870年联邦人口普查的新指数，这些联系现在成为可能。当这些样本完成后，研究人员将可以获得涵盖19世纪50年代、19世纪60年代和19世纪70年代的纵向数据。这是美国经济史上重要的几十年：包括定居者迅速迁移到西部，内战及其后果，非裔美国人奴隶的解放，以及大规模资本密集型工业的发展。这些发展中的每一个都应该对经济流动性产生巨大影响。例如，正如弗雷德里克·杰克逊·特纳一个多世纪前提出的那样，西部未定居土地的可获得性可能为东部城市劳动力市场供过于求的劳动力提供了一个重要的出口。这个项目将提供第一个直接证据，用来检验特纳的断言。这项提案中提出的结果表明，至少在19世纪50年代，特纳是正确的。非洲裔美国人的经济表现不佳，归因于他们在解放后几年中的弱势地位，几乎没有人力或物质资本，农业以外的就业机会很少，毁灭性的债务负担和歧视性的环境。该项目将提供关于他们解放后十年的业绩的第一批数据，并使对这些问题的审查成为可能。

Though economists have devoted considerable attention to patterns of economic mobility in recent years, historical patterns of movement within the income and wealth distributions and within the occupational hierarchy have been subject to less scrutiny. This has been the result of a lack of suitable longitudinal data like that found in contemporary sources such as the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) and the National Longitudinal Survey (NLS). This project will continue work on creating such data for the second half of the nineteenth century. Previous support made possible the creation of a new sample of 5,000 American males linked across the 1850 and 1860 federal population censuses, as well as substantial progress on a sample of 7,000 American males linked across the 1860 and 1870 federal population censuses. These new samples have permitted a unique view of economic mobility in the U.S. in the years surrounding the Civil War. They have made it possible to study wealth mobility, occupational change, and the role of geographic mobility (in particular migration to the frontier) in fostering economic opportunity. This project will complete the creation of thirty years of longitudinal data for the nineteenth century by making it possible to finish the 1860 1870 sample (now roughly 2/3 done) and to link 3,200 males from the 1880 Public Use Micro Sample to the 1870 manuscript census schedules. These linkages are now possible because of the recent creation of a new index to the 1870 federal population census. When these samples are completed, researchers will have access to longitudinal data that covers the 1850s, the 1860s, and the 1870s. These were momentous decades in American economic history: they include the rapid movement of settlers into the West, the Civil War and its aftermath, the emancipation of African American slaves, and the growth of large scale, capital intensive industries. Each of these developments should have had enormous consequences for economic mobility. For example, the availability of unsettled land in the West may have provided an important outlet for laborers in glutted Eastern urban labor markets, as suggested more than a century ago by Frederick Jackson Turner. This project will provide the first direct evidence with which we can test Turner's assertion. Results presented in this proposal suggest that, at least for the 1850s, Turner was correct. The poor economic performance of African Americans has been attributed to the weak position from which they began in the years after emancipation, with little human or physical capital, few employment opportunities outside agriculture, a ruinous debt burden, and a discriminatory environment. This project will provide the first data on their performance in the decade following emancipation and make possible an examination of these issues.