IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/jechis/v40y1980i03p477-496_08.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Household Wealth in a Settlement Economy: Utah, 1850–1870

Author

Listed:
  • Kearl, J.R.
  • Pope, Clayne L.
  • Wimmer, Larry T.

Abstract

The economics of David Ricardo and the contemporary evidence for the economic importance of information suggest that time of entry into an economy should be an important determinant of wealth. This hypothesis is validated for nineteenth-century Utah, since time of entry into the economy had a larger impact on the level of wealth than did occupation, birthplace, sex, region of settlement, or age. This finding suggests that the effect on wealthholding of variables often given a discriminatory interpretation such as foreign birth may be overstated if time of entry into the economy is ignored. It also helps to explain the increase in inequality as the settlement process continues.returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

Suggested Citation

  • Kearl, J.R. & Pope, Clayne L. & Wimmer, Larry T., 1980. "Household Wealth in a Settlement Economy: Utah, 1850–1870," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 40(3), pages 477-496, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jechis:v:40:y:1980:i:03:p:477-496_08
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0022050700085193/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Stewart, James I., 2006. "Migration to the agricultural frontier and wealth accumulation, 1860-1870," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 43(4), pages 547-577, October.
    2. Walker, Thomas R., 2000. "Economic Opportunity on the Urban Frontier: Wealth and Nativity in Early San Francisco," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 258-277, July.
    3. Stewart, James I., 2012. "Migration to U.S. frontier cities and job opportunity, 1860–1880," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 528-542.
    4. Eric C. Edwards & Martin Fiszbein & Gary D. Libecap, 2022. "Property Rights to Land and Agricultural Organization: An Argentina–United States Comparison," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65(S1), pages 1-33.
    5. Jeanne Cilliers & Erik Green & Robert Ross, 2023. "Did it pay to be a pioneer? Wealth accumulation in a newly settled frontier society," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 76(1), pages 257-282, February.
    6. Samuel Bazzi & Martin Fiszbein & Mesay Gebresilasse, 2017. "Frontier Culture: The Roots and Persistence of “Rugged Individualism†in the United States," Boston University - Department of Economics - Working Papers Series WP2018-004, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    7. Larry T. Wimmer, 2003. "Reflections on the Early Indicators Project.A Partial History," NBER Chapters, in: Health and Labor Force Participation over the Life Cycle: Evidence from the Past, pages 1-10, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Gary D. Libecap, 2018. "Property Rights to Frontier Land and Minerals: US Exceptionalism," NBER Working Papers 24544, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:jechis:v:40:y:1980:i:03:p:477-496_08. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/jeh .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.