Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T10:58:57.693Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Human Capital and Growth in the Postbellum South: A Separate but Unequal Story

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2004

MICHELLE CONNOLLY
MICHELLE CONNOLLY
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, Duke University, 213 Social Sciences, Box 90097, Durham, NC 27708. E-mail: connolly@econ.duke.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article tests the importance of human capital in explaining convergence across the states from 1880 to 1950. Human capital matters to a state's income level and to its growth rate through technological diffusion. The South, whose overwhelmingly agricultural society relied more heavily on work experience than formal education, and whose racial discrimination in school resource allocation lowered human capital accumulation of both blacks and whites, presents a unique pattern. The South's low human capital levels following the Civil War and its active postbellum resistance to education reduced its speed of conditional convergence toward the rest of the nation.

Type
ARTICLES
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 64 , Issue 2 , June 2004 , pp. 363 - 399
Copyright
© 2004 The Economic History Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barro Robert, and Xavier Sala-i-Martin. 1991 “Convergence across States and Regions.” Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, no. 1: 107– 82.Google Scholar
Barro Robert, and Xavier Sala-i-Martin. 1992 “Convergence.” Journal of Political Economy 100, no. 2: 223– 51.Google Scholar
Beatty Bess. 1987 “Lowells of the South: Northern Influences on the Nineteenth-Century North Carolina Textile Industry.” Journal of Southern History 53, no. 1: 37– 62.Google Scholar
Benhabib Jess, and Mark Spiegel. 1994 “The Role of Human Capital in Economic Development: Evidence from Aggregate Cross-Country Data.” Journal of Monetary Economics 34, no. 2: 143– 73.Google Scholar
Betts Julian. 1996. “Is There a Link between School Inputs and Earnings? Fresh Scrutiny of an Old Literature.” In Does Money Matter?: The Effect of School Resources on Student Achievement and Adult Success, edited by Gary Burtless, chap. 6 141– 91. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution
Bond Horace Mann. 1934. The Education of the Negro in the American Social Order. New York: Prentice Hall
Card David, and Alan Krueger. 1992 “School Quality and Black-White Relative Earnings: A Direct Assessment.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 107, no. 1: 151– 200.Google Scholar
Carlton David. 1990 “The Revolution from Above: The National Market and the Beginnings of Industrialization in North Carolina.” Journal of American History 77, no. 2: 445– 75.Google Scholar
Carlton David, and Peter Coclanis. 1989 “Capital Mobilization and Southern Industry, 1880–1905: The Case of the Carolina Piedmont.” This JOURNAL 49, no. 1: 73– 94.Google Scholar
Carlton David, and Peter Coclanis. 1995 “The Uninventive South? A Quantitative Look at Region and American Inventiveness.” Technology and Culture 36: 302– 26.Google Scholar
Caselli Francesco, and Wilber John Coleman II. 2001 “The U.S. Structural Transformation and Regional Convergence: A Reinterpretation.” Journal of Political Economy 109, no. 3: 584– 616.Google Scholar
Colberg Marshall. 1965. Human Capital in Southern Development, 1939–1963. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press
Donohue IIIJohn, James Heckman, and Petra Todd. 2002 “The Schooling of Southern Blacks: The Roles of Legal Activism and Private Philanthropy, 1910–1960.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 117, no. 1: 225– 68.Google Scholar
Easterlin Richard. 1957. “Regional Growth of Income: Long Term Tendencies.” In Population Redistribution and Economic Growth: United States, 1870–1950, Vol. 2, edited by Simon Kuznets, Ann Miller, and Richard Easterlin, 702– 59. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society
Easterlin Richard. 1960. “Interregional Differences in Per Capita Income, Population, and Total Income, 1840–1950.” In Trends in the American Economy in the Nineteenth Century, Conference on Research in Income and Wealth, National Bureau of Economic Research. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press
Easterlin Richard. 1968. Population, Labor Force, and Long Swings in Economic Growth. New York: NBER, Columbia University Press
Gerber James. 1986. Southern White Schooling, 1880–1940. University of California Davis Ph.D. diss.,
Gibson Campbell, and Kay Jung. 2002. “Historical Census Statistics on Population Totals by Race, 1790 to 1990.” Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau. Population Division Working Paper No. 56,
Hausman Jerry. 1978 “Specification Tests in Econometrics.” Econometrica 46, 6: 1251– 72.Google Scholar
Hausman Jerry, and William Taylor. 1981 “Panel Data and Unobservable Individual Effects.” Econometrica. 49, no. 6: 1377– 99.Google Scholar
Higgs Robert. 1977. Competition and Coercion: Blacks in the American Economy, 1865–1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Hirschman Albert. 1958. The Strategy of Economic Development. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press
Kim Sukkoo. 1995 “Expansion of Markets and the Geographic Distribution of Economic Activities: the Trends in U.S. Regional Manufacturing Structure, 1869–1987.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 110, no. 4: 881– 908.Google Scholar
Kim Sukkoo. 1998 “Economic Integration and Convergence: U.S. Regions, 1840–1987.” This JOURNAL 58, no. 3: 659– 83.Google Scholar
Kendrick John. 1961. Productivity Trends in the United States. NBER. Princeton University Press
Kuznets Simon, and Dorothy Swaine Thomas, eds. 1957. Population Redistribution and Economic Growth: United States, 1870–1950, Vol. 1: Methodological Considerations and Reference Tables. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society
Lebergott Stanley. 1964. Manpower in Economic Growth: the American Record since 1800. New York: McGraw-Hill
Lee Everett. 1957 “Migration Estimates.” In Population Redistribution and Economic Growth: U.S. 1870–1950, vol. 1, ed. by Simon Kuznets and Dorothy Swaine Thomas. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society: table P-3, 249– 348.
Lucas Robert Jr. 1988 “On the Mechanics of Economic Development.” Journal of Monetary Economics 22, no. 1: 3– 42.Google Scholar
Mankiw Gregory, David Romer, and David Weil. 1992 “A Contribution to the Empirics of Economic Growth.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 107, no. 2: 407– 38.Google Scholar
Margo Robert. 1986 “Race, Educational Attainment and the 1940 Census.” This JOURNAL 46, no. 1: 189– 98.Google Scholar
Margo Robert. 1986 “Race and Human Capital: Comment.” The American Economic Review 76, no. 5: 1221– 24.Google Scholar
Margo Robert. 1988. “Schooling and the Great Migration.” NBER working paper #2679,
Margo Robert. 1990. Race and Schooling in the South, 1880–1950: An Economic History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
Margo Robert. 2002. “The North-South Wage Gap, Before and After the Civil War.” NBER working paper #8778, Forthcoming in the festschrift for Stanley Engerman.
McCuistion Fred. 1930. “Financing Schools in the South: Some Data Regarding Sources, Amounts, and Distribution of Public School Revenue in the Southern States.” Nashville,
Miller Ann, and Carol Brainerd. 1957. “Labor Force Estimates.” In Population Redistribution and Economic Growth: U.S. 1870–1950, vol. 1, edited by Simon Kuznets and Dorothy Swaine Thomas, 362– 517. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society
Mitchener Kris, and Ian McLean. 1999 “U.S. Regional Growth and Convergence, 1880–1980.” This JOURNAL 59, no. 4: 1016– 42.Google Scholar
Myrdal Gunnar. 1957. Economic Theory and Underdeveloped Regions. London: G. Duckworth
Nelson Richard, and Edmund Phelps. 1966 “Investment in Humans, Technological Diffusion, and Economic Growth.” American Economic Review 56, no. 2: 69– 75.Google Scholar
Ransom Roger, and Richard Sutch. 1977. One Kind of Freedom. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge
Rizzuto Ronald, and Paul Wachtel. 1980 “Further Evidence on the Returns to School Quality. Journal of Human Resources 15, no. 2: 240– 54.Google Scholar
Romans J. Thomas. 1965. Capital Exports and Growth Among US Regions. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press
Romer Paul. 1990 “Endogenous Technological Change.” Journal of Political Economy 98, no. 5: S71– S102.Google Scholar
Romer Paul. 1986 “Increasing Returns and Long-Run Growth.” Journal of Political Economy 94, no. 5: 1002– 37.Google Scholar
Rosenbloom Joshua. 1990. “One Market or Many? Labor Market Integration in the Late Nineteenth-Century United States.” This JOURNAL 50, no. 1: 85– 107.Google Scholar
Rosenbloom Joshua. 1996. “Was There a National Labor Market at the End of the Nineteenth Century? New Evidence on Earnings in Manufacturing.” This JOURNAL 56, no. 3: 626– 56.Google Scholar
Ruggles Steven, Matthew Sobek, et al. Integrated Public Use Microdata Series: Version 2.0 Minneapolis: Historical Census Projects, University of Minnesota (1997): http://www.ipums.org.
Smith James. 1984 “Race and Human Capital.” The American Economic Review 74, no. 4: 685– 98.Google Scholar
Smith James. 1986 “Race and Human Capital: Reply.” The American Economic Review 76, no. 5: 1225– 29.Google Scholar
Solow Robert. 1956 “A Contribution to the Theory of Economic Growth.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 70, no. 1: 65– 94.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of Education. 1870–1950. Report of the Commissioner of Education. Washington DC: GPO
U.S. Bureau of the Census. 1947–1976. Annual Survey of Manufactures. Washington, DC: GPO
U.S. Bureau of the Census. 1947. 1947 Census of Manufactures. Washington, DC: GPO
U.S. Department of Commerce. 1989. Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970. White Plains, NY: Kraus International Publications
Uzawa Hirofumi. 1965 “Optimum Technical Change in an Aggregative Model of Economic Growth.” International Economic Review 6, no. 1: 18– 31.Google Scholar
Vigdor Jacob. 2002 “Locations, Outcomes, and Selective Migration.” Review of Economics and Statistics 84, no. 4: 751– 55.Google Scholar
Vigdor Jacob. 2002 “The Pursuit of Opportunity: Explaining Selective Black Migration.” Journal of Urban Economics 51, no. 3: 391– 417.Google Scholar
Weiman David. 1990. “Staple Crops and Slave Plantations: Alternative Perspectives on Regional Development in the Ante-bellum Cotton South.” In Agriculture and National Development, edited by Louis Ferleger, 141– 45. Ames: Iowa State University Press
Williamson Jeffrey. 1965 “Regional Inequality and the Process of National Development: A Description of the Patterns.” Economic Development and Cultural Change 13, no. 4: 3– 47.Google Scholar
Williamson Jeffrey. 1998 “Growth, Distribution, and Demography: Some Lessons from History.” Explorations in Economic History 35, no. 3: 241– 71.Google Scholar
Williamson Jeffrey, and Peter Lindert. 1980. American Inequality: A Macroeconomic History. New York: Academic Press
Wright G. 1974 “Cotton Competition and the Post-Bellum Recovery of the American South.” This JOURNAL 34, no. 3: 610– 35.Google Scholar
Wright G. 1986. Old South, New South: Revolutions in the Southern Economy Since the Civil War. New York: Basic Books