Title

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

Author(s)

Philipp Ager Philipp Ager (University of Southern Denmark)

Leah Platt Boustan Leah Boustan (Princeton University)

Katherine Eriksson 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.

Creation Date

2019-09

Section URL ID

Paper Number

2019-24

URL

https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/lboustan/files/w25700_sept2019.pdf

File Function

Jel

J62, N11

Keyword(s)

U.S., Northern America, History; Skill, Wealth

Suppress

false

Series

13