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Were Nineteenth‐Century Industrial Workers Permanent Income Savers?

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  • Howard Bodenhorn

Abstract

Theories of household saving posit that households add to or draw down wealth to equalize the discounted present value of consumption over time. This article examines the extent to which 19th century urban American industrial workers saved and dissaved to smooth consumption in response to unanticipated, plausibly exogenous, shocks to income. Information on the expected and unexpected number of days unemployed is used to construct estimates of transitory income. The data are then used to estimate the marginal propensity to save from transitory income. The results are broadly consistent with Friedman's () permanent income hypothesis in that the marginal propensity to consume from transitory income is about twice that of nontransitory income.

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  • Howard Bodenhorn, 2019. "Were Nineteenth‐Century Industrial Workers Permanent Income Savers?," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 85(4), pages 1286-1310, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:soecon:v:85:y:2019:i:4:p:1286-1310
    DOI: 10.1002/soej.12335
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D15 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Intertemporal Household Choice; Life Cycle Models and Saving
    • N21 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions - - - U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913

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