Location: 360 Heady Hall

Description: Joshua Rosenbloom
“Wealth Mobility in the United States during the Civil War Decade”
Abstract: The American Civil War and the resulting emancipation of formerly enslaved African Americans transferred a substantial amount of human capital wealth from the slaves former owners to the newly freed slaves.  What were the effects of this "wealth shock" on wealth mobility?  This paper explores this issue using newly collected data on a linked sample of household heads followed from 1860 to 1870. Preliminary results suggest that despite the disproportionate effect of emancipation and the War on southern wealth holders, economic mobility in the North and South was quite similar over the decade.  There is some evidence that those with greater amounts of slave wealth were more negatively affected by the events of the 1860, but there is little indication that this had a major effect on wealth mobility.

Contact Person: John V. Winters