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The Intergenerational Effects of a Large Wealth Shock: White Southerners after the Civil War

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Listed:
  • Philipp Ager

    (University of Southern Denmark)

  • Leah Platt Boustan

    (Princeton University)

  • Katherine Eriksson

    (University of California, Davis)

Abstract

The nullification of slave wealth after the U.S. Civil War (1861-65) was one of the largest episodes of wealth compressions in history. We document that white Southern households holding more slave assets in 1860 lost substantially more wealth by 1870, relative to households that had been equally wealthy before the war. Yet, the sons of former slaveholders recovered relative to comparable sons by 1900, and grandsons surpassed their counterparts in educational and occupational attainment by 1940. We find that social networks facilitated this recovery, with sons marrying into other former slaveholding families. Transmission of entrepreneurship and skills appear less central.

Suggested Citation

  • Philipp Ager & Leah Platt Boustan & Katherine Eriksson, 2019. "The Intergenerational Effects of a Large Wealth Shock: White Southerners after the Civil War," Working Papers 2019-24, Princeton University. Economics Department..
    • Handle: RePEc:pri:econom:2019-24
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    U.S.; Northern America; History; Skill; Wealth;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion
    • N11 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913

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