IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ksp/journ3/v5y2018i1p42-55.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Differences in wealth, evidence from structural regression decomposition, 1850-1870

Author

Listed:
  • James E. CURTIS Jr.

    (Independent researcher, PO Box 3126, Washington, District of Columbia, USA.)

Abstract

Recent studies have used regression decomposition to analyze recent data and found that over seventy percent of the black-white wealth differences remained unexplained (See, e.g., Gittleman & Wolff 2000; Altonji, Doraszelski & Segal 2000; and Blau & Graham 1990). Their results are limited to the variation in modern data. This study contributes improved methodology and historical empirical results to the literature on economic discrimination. In this paper, (i) presents structural regression decompositions, which are modifications to methods developed by Becker (1957) and Oaxaca (1973); (ii) presents a basic empirical test when analyzing structural regression decompositions; (iii) reports the estimated sources of black-white differences in wealth directly before and after emancipation; (iv) links these findings to recent studies. Empirical estimates confirm that the size and persistence of modern black-white wealth differences have historical roots. (v) presents decision-making considerations of “individuals” in an economy with grouped individuals, owners of firms, and social planner(s), conditional on wealth constraints with applied social economic considerations.

Suggested Citation

  • James E. CURTIS Jr., 2018. "Differences in wealth, evidence from structural regression decomposition, 1850-1870," Journal of Economic and Social Thought, KSP Journals, vol. 5(1), pages 42-55, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:ksp:journ3:v:5:y:2018:i:1:p:42-55
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.kspjournals.org/index.php/JEST/article/download/1567/1579
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.kspjournals.org/index.php/JEST/article/view/1567
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lisa A. Keister, 2000. "Family Structure, Race, and Wealth Ownership: A Longitudinal Exploration of Wealth Accumulation Processes," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_304, Levy Economics Institute.
    2. Ashenfelter, Orley & Ham, John, 1979. "Education, Unemployment, and Earnings," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(5), pages 99-116, October.
    3. Robert A. Margo, 1990. "Race and Schooling in the South, 1880-1950: An Economic History," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number marg90-1, June.
    4. John C. Ham, 1982. "Estimation of a Labour Supply Model with Censoring Due to Unemployment and Underemployment," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 49(3), pages 335-354.
    5. Edward N. Wolff, "undated". "Racial Wealth Disparities Is the Gap Closing?," Economics Public Policy Brief Archive ppb_66, Levy Economics Institute.
    6. Lisa A. Keister, 2000. "Family Structure, Race, and Wealth Ownership: A Longitudinal Exploration of Wealth Accumulation Processes," Macroeconomics 0004051, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Masson, Andre, 1986. "A Cohort Analysis of Wealth-Age Profiles Generated by a Simulation Model in France (1949-75)," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 96(381), pages 173-190, March.
    8. repec:bla:revinw:v:20:y:1974:i:1:p:103-18 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Martin J. Bailey, 1959. "Note on the Economics of Residential Zoning and Urban Renewal," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 35(3), pages 288-292.
    10. Higgs, Robert, 1982. "Accumulation of Property by Southern Blacks before World War I," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(4), pages 725-737, September.
    11. Francine D. Blau & John W. Graham, 1990. "Black-White Differences in Wealth and Asset Composition," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 105(2), pages 321-339.
    12. Milton Friedman, 1957. "Introduction to "A Theory of the Consumption Function"," NBER Chapters, in: A Theory of the Consumption Function, pages 1-6, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Edward N. Wolff, 1998. "Recent Trends in the Size Distribution of Household Wealth," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 131-150, Summer.
    14. repec:pri:indrel:dsp01fb494841t is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Thomas J. Weiss, 1992. "U. S. Labor Force Estimates and Economic Growth, 1800-1860," NBER Chapters, in: American Economic Growth and Standards of Living before the Civil War, pages 19-78, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Wolff, Edward N, 1992. "Changing Inequality of Wealth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(2), pages 552-558, May.
    17. Milton Friedman, 1957. "A Theory of the Consumption Function," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number frie57-1, June.
    18. Shlomo Yitzhaki, 1987. "The Relation between Return and Income," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 102(1), pages 77-95.
    19. Steckel, Richard H, 1990. "Poverty and Prosperity: A Longitudinal Study of Wealth Accumulation, 1850-1860," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 72(2), pages 275-285, May.
    20. Lewis M. Segal & Daniel G. Sullivan, 1998. "Trends in homeownership: race, demographics, and income," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, vol. 22(Q II), pages 53-72.
    21. Jacob A. Mincer, 1974. "Schooling and Earnings," NBER Chapters, in: Schooling, Experience, and Earnings, pages 41-63, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    22. Jacob A. Mincer, 1974. "Schooling, Experience, and Earnings," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number minc74-1, June.
    23. Erik Hurst & Ming Ching Luoh & Frank P. Stafford, 1998. "The Wealth Dynamics of American Families, 1984-94," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 29(1), pages 267-338.
    24. Ronald L. Oaxaca & Michael R. Ransom, 1999. "Identification in Detailed Wage Decompositions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(1), pages 154-157, February.
    25. Orley Ashenfelter & John C. Ham, 1979. "Education, Unemployment, and Earnings," Working Papers 501, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    26. Terrell, Henry S, 1971. "Wealth Accumulation of Black and White Families: The Empirical Evidence," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 26(2), pages 363-377, May.
    27. Mirer, Thad W, 1979. "The Wealth-Age Relation among the Aged," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 69(3), pages 435-443, June.
    28. Franklin, Stephen D & Smith, James D, 1977. "Black-White Differences in Income and Wealth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(1), pages 405-409, February.
    29. Shorrocks, A F, 1978. "The Measurement of Mobility," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(5), pages 1013-1024, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. James CURTIS Jr, 2018. "A study of consumption decisions and wealth, individual data, political economy and theory," Journal of Economics Library, KSP Journals, vol. 5(1), pages 99-102, March.
    2. Curtis Jr, James, 2017. "Essays in Applied Labor Economics," MPRA Paper 84445, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. James E. CURTIS Jr., 2017. "Differences in wealth, education, and history," Journal of Social and Administrative Sciences, KSP Journals, vol. 4(4), pages 398-417, December.
    2. Deborah A. Cobb-Clark & Vincent A. Hildebrand, 2006. "The Wealth of Mexican Americans," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 41(4).
    3. Deborah A. Cobb‐Clark & Vincent A. Hildebrand, 2006. "The Wealth And Asset Holdings Of U.S.‐Born And Foreign‐Born Households: Evidence From Sipp Data," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 52(1), pages 17-42, March.
    4. Canaday, Neil, 2008. "The accumulation of property by southern blacks and whites: Individual-level evidence from a South Carolina cotton county, 1910-1919," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 51-75, January.
    5. Philip Trostel & Ian Walker, 2006. "Education and Work," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(4), pages 377-399.
    6. Angel de la Fuente & Juan Francisco Jimeno, 2004. "The private and fiscal returns to schooling and the effect of public policies on private incentives to invest in education: a general framework and some results for the EU," Working Papers 152, Barcelona School of Economics.
    7. repec:diw:diwwpp:dp1514 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Lucie Schmidt & Purvi Sevak, 2006. "Gender, Marriage, And Asset Accumulation In The United States," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(1-2), pages 139-166.
    9. Lisa Barrow & Cecilia Elena Rouse, 2005. "Do Returns to Schooling Differ by Race and Ethnicity?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 83-87, May.
    10. Pemberton, James, 1997. "Modelling and measuring income uncertainty in life cycle models," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 81-98, January.
    11. Joseph G. Altonji & Ulrich Doraszelski, 2005. "The Role of Permanent Income and Demographics in Black/White Differences in Wealth," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 40(1).
    12. Jacob Mincer, 1991. "Education and Unemployment," NBER Working Papers 3838, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Damon, Amy L. & Glewwe, Paul, 2008. "Should governments subsidize tuition at public universities? Assessing the benefits of tuition subsidies provided by the University of Minnesota and the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities syste," Reports 44204, University of Minnesota, International Science and Technology Practice and Policy.
    14. Manuel Salas Velasco, 2004. "Rendimientos privados de las inversiones en educación superior a partir de ecuaciones de ingresos," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 169(2), pages 87-117, June.
    15. Nelissen, Jan H. M., 1998. "Annual versus lifetime income redistribution by social security," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 223-249, May.
    16. Nesterova Daria & Sabirianova Klara, 1998. "Investment in Human Capital under Economic Transformation in Russia," EERC Working Paper Series 99-04e, EERC Research Network, Russia and CIS.
    17. Andersson, Roland & Nabavi Larijani, Pardis & Wilhelmsson, Mats, 2013. "The impact of vocational education and training on income in Sweden," Working Paper Series 13/4, Royal Institute of Technology, Department of Real Estate and Construction Management & Banking and Finance.
    18. William J. Collins & Robert A. Margo, 1999. "Race and Home Ownership, 1900 to 1990," NBER Working Papers 7277, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Andrew E. Clark, 2003. "Unemployment as a Social Norm: Psychological Evidence from Panel Data," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 21(2), pages 289-322, April.
    20. Andrea Butelmann P & Francisco Gallego, 2000. "Household Saving in Chile: Microeconomic Evidence," Journal Economía Chilena (The Chilean Economy), Central Bank of Chile, vol. 3(1), pages 5-24, April.
    21. Steiner, Viktor & Glocker, Daniela, 2011. "Returns to Education across Europe," CEPR Discussion Papers 8568, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Theory of economic discrimination; Structural regression decomposition; Wealth inequality.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J70 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - General
    • D90 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - General
    • E20 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • C20 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - General
    • H50 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - General
    • N30 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - General, International, or Comparative

    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:ksp:journ3:v:5:y:2018:i:1:p:42-55. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Bilal KARGI The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Bilal KARGI to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.kspjournals.org .

    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.