The Determinants of the Wealth and Asset Holding in Nineteenth-Century Canada: Evidence from Microdata

Matteo, Livio Di

doi:10.1017/s0022050700019586

Cited by 29 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…There is also an economic history literature that has examined the determinants of wealth, property ownership and inequality with various specifications employed. See for example, Atack and Bateman (1981), Pope (1989), Steckel (1990), Galenson (1991), Haines and Goodman (1991), Herscovici (1993Herscovici ( , 1998, Ferrie (1994Ferrie ( , 1995Ferrie ( , 1999, Gregson (1996), Di Matteo (1997Matteo ( , 1998, Conley andGalenson (1998), Walker (2000), Steckel and Moehling (2001).…”

Section: Literature and Contextmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…The census listed only children still living within the household whereas the probate records generally listed all the children who were 21 The inventory categories were:(1) Household goods and furniture, (2) Farm implements, (3) Stock in trade, (4) Horses, (5) Cattle, (6) Sheep and Swine, (7) Book Debts and Promissory Notes, (8) Moneys secured by mortgage, (9) Life Insurance, (10) Bank stocks and other shares, (11) Securities, (12) Cash on hand, (13) Cash in bank (14) Farm produce, (15) Real estate, (16) Other personal property. 22 For a full data collection description, see Di Matteo (1997). 23 Some omitted probated decedents were residents of other Canadian provinces or the United States and Britain but with Ontario property.…”

Section: Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Lee (2001:176-177). 2 See Di Matteo (1996Matteo ( , 1997Matteo ( , 1998. 3 See for example Engerman (1996), Carter and Sutch (1996), Costa (1996) and Gratton (1996).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

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Wealth accumulation motives: evidence from the probate records of Ontario, 1892 and 1902

Matteo

2007

Cliometrica

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The wealth of male decedents using census-linked probate records from 1892 and 1902 is examined for evidence on saving motives. This data presents an opportunity to examine wealth holding and saving motives in an environment devoid of many of the features that can affect modern retirement, consumption and saving decisions. Evidence is found supporting the existence of a strategic bequest motive. This result occurs after controlling for the possibility of the demand for children rising with the level of wealth as well as the potential contribution to wealth accumulation that children made in agricultural economies. These results also suggest that while the presence of a bequest motive was real and significant, its ultimate contribution to wealth accumulation was relatively modest when compared to the impact of variables such as occupational status and literacy. Moreover, there appears to be some evidence supporting a transition in saving motives away from bequest saving and towards greater life cycle saving.

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Section: Literature and Contextmentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

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Wealth accumulation motives: evidence from the probate records of Ontario, 1892 and 1902

Matteo

2007

Cliometrica

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“…One group may arrive with more capital of all types (e.g., more education, higher-status occupations, or greater wealth), establish a community and retain that advantage, which may then advantage later arrivals of the same group. These time of arrival inequalities are furthered by the maturation of early arriving immigrant populations and the individual-level accumulation of resources associated with aging (Atack and Bateman, 1981; Di Matteo 1997; 2001). …”

Section: A Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Immigration, Occupation, and Inequality in Emergent Nineteenth-Century New England Cities

2017

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This paper explores the social interactions of immigration, occupation and wealth in two urban industrial cities of nineteenth century New England that were largely built upon, and shaped by, immigration: the very rapidly growing factory town of Holyoke, Massachusetts and a more mixed market and steadily growing nearby community of Northampton, Massachusetts. Both communities were emergent, rapidly industrializing, inland cities, providing a quite distinct immigration context than large established cities of the East Coast. Both were destinations for the same general ethnic immigration waves over the late nineteenth century, but with very different, and differently impacted, social spaces into which immigrants arrived. Contrasting and considering both these emergent cities allows us to ascertain the extent to which the occupational distribution and accumulation of wealth by immigrant groups supports the broad pattern of nineteenth-century assimilation, and reveals ways in which other migration processes may have been at odds, or intertwined, with the long-term historical assimilation of immigrants in such communities. Our findings support a traditional assimilationist perspective in emergent urban-industrial centers. However, they also reveal the role of universal immiseration in an industrial city dual-labor market in facilitating or forcing assimilation, the temporal advantages for ethnic groups of arriving early in growing settlements, and the more individualistic nature of economic enclaves in gaining advantages over time that did not manifest across broad immigrant or occupational groups.

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“…Probate inventories constitute a kind of summation of one's life in economic terms and include a rather detailed description of assets (real estate, personal property, claims and financial savings) as well as debts by value and kind. By comparing inventories for deceased in different age groups, the development of the economic situation over the life cycle can be reconstructed (for example Di Matteo, 1997). In this study the method was used to reconstruct net wealth (assets minus debts) in different stages of life, in order to analyze savings for old age and children's impact on wealth.…”

Section: Aim Methods and Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

To depend on one's children or to depend on oneself: savings for old-age and children's impact on wealth

Lilja

Bäcklund

2013

The History of the Family

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How did workers make provisions for old age before the introduction of old age pensions? What was the relative importance of dependence on children and saving for old age respectively? This article concerns the transition from a traditional familybased system for economic support in old age to a more modern system. Regarding the nineteenth century, studies have shown that (a) savings generally were insufficient for full retirement, and that (b) families were dependent on children's incomes when the breadwinner became older. Little attention has been paid to the question of how the relative importance of these two alternatives changed during the century. This question is addressed here in a cross-sectional study of net wealth based on probate inventories for three Swedish towns in the 1820s and the 1900s.The results show that in general the economic importance of children was larger among the lower socio-economic strata. They also reveal that net costs for having children increased between the investigated periods. This means that dependence on children became more expensive. Consequently, the economic importance of this alternative decreased. This may have been a strong motive for the fertility transition.On the other hand, net wealth for workers increased at the end of the nineteenth century. Financial assets constituted a great part of the increase. Workers with children had less financial savings than those without children, showing that there was a conflict between the traditional and the modern systems for support in old age. However, still at the turn of the twentieth century funds were generally too small to allow an old worker to retire. These results indicate that neither the old, nor the modern systems, fully satisfied the need for support in old age. This may explain why several Western European countries introduced old age pensions at the beginning of the twentieth century.

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The Determinants of the Wealth and Asset Holding in Nineteenth-Century Canada: Evidence from Microdata

Cited by 29 publications

References 30 publications

Wealth accumulation motives: evidence from the probate records of Ontario, 1892 and 1902

Wealth accumulation motives: evidence from the probate records of Ontario, 1892 and 1902

Immigration, Occupation, and Inequality in Emergent Nineteenth-Century New England Cities

To depend on one's children or to depend on oneself: savings for old-age and children's impact on wealth

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