The Economic Assimilation of Irish Famine Migrants to the United States

Collins, William J.; Zimran, Ariell

doi:10.3386/w25287

Cited by 14 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…27 Our analysis below requires individual-level migration data, which we construct in two ways. First, we use information on children's state of birth to infer migration patterns of their parents as in Collins and Zimran (2019). Second, we track individuals over time by linking across Census rounds using an algorithm developed by Feigenbaum (2016) and detailed in Appendix K.…”

Section: The Roots Of Frontier Culturementioning

confidence: 99%

Frontier Culture: The Roots and Persistence of “Rugged Individualism” in the United States

Bazzi

Fiszbein

Gebresilasse

2020

ECTA

175

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The presence of a westward‐moving frontier of settlement shaped early U.S. history. In 1893, the historian Frederick Jackson Turner famously argued that the American frontier fostered individualism. We investigate the “frontier thesis” and identify its long‐run implications for culture and politics. We track the frontier throughout the 1790–1890 period and construct a novel, county‐level measure of total frontier experience (TFE). Historically, frontier locations had distinctive demographics and greater individualism. Long after the closing of the frontier, counties with greater TFE exhibit more pervasive individualism and opposition to redistribution. This pattern cuts across known divides in the United States, including urban–rural and north–south. We provide evidence on the roots of frontier culture, identifying both selective migration and a causal effect of frontier exposure on individualism. Overall, our findings shed new light on the frontier's persistent legacy of rugged individualism.

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Section: The Roots Of Frontier Culturementioning

confidence: 99%

Frontier Culture: The Roots and Persistence of “Rugged Individualism” in the United States

Bazzi

Fiszbein

Gebresilasse

2020

ECTA

175

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“…For sons in 1900, we follow Collins and Zimran (2018) in creating a wealth proxy using occupation and county/state of residence. In particular, we match agricultural occupations to median 1870 wealth by occupation-county cell and non-agricultural occupations to occupationstate cell.…”

Section: Outcome Variables For Fathers and Sonsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Ager

Boustan

Eriksson

2019

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and the late Werner Troesken. James Feigenbaum, Matt Jaremski, and Suresh Naidu generously shared data with us for the project. Brian Lee provided excellent research assistance. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.

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“…47 Meanwhile, Collins and Zimran find intergenerational convergence of famine-era Irish migrants to the US in terms of occupational status. 48 Careful comparison of anthropometric datasets either side of the Atlantic can provide a greater appreciation of the migrant selection debate in the Irish context.…”

Section: Review Of Anthropometric Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Anthropometric History: Revisiting What’s in it for Ireland

McLaughlin

Colvin²,

Blum

2020

Irish Economic and Social History

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This research note updates Cormac Ó Gráda’s (1996) critical review of the literature on the connection between the stature of the Irish, on the one hand, and their health and living standards, on the other. We find most of the anthropometric data sets used in this literature pertain to Irish emigrants rather than those who stayed behind. We therefore argue prison registers are a more appropriate source of anthropometric information. But results derived from these registers need to be handled with caution as prisoners are a selected population. We uncover the various observable selection biases inherent in prison data and track how they change across the second half of the nineteenth century. We find changes in selection into crime across time are more likely to have been due to institutional rather than economic factors.

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The Economic Assimilation of Irish Famine Migrants to the United States

Cited by 14 publications

References 38 publications

Frontier Culture: The Roots and Persistence of “Rugged Individualism” in the United States

Frontier Culture: The Roots and Persistence of “Rugged Individualism” in the United States

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

Anthropometric History: Revisiting What’s in it for Ireland

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