Fractional reserve regimes generate fragile banking, and full reserve regimes (e.g., narrow banking) remove fragility at the cost of suppressing the role of banks as lenders. A Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) could provide safe money, but at the cost of potentially disrupting bank lending....

The Antebellum Puzzle' describes the situation of declining stature and pos mortality in the three decades prior to the American Civil War (1861-65). It is this period was one of rapid economic growth and development in the United State the debate has centered on whether the American diet, both...

The U.S. fertility transition in the nineteenth century is unusual. Not only did it start from a very high fertility level and very early in the nation’s development, but it also took place long before the nation’s mortality transition, industrialization, and urbanization. This paper...

This paper utilizes household-level budget data from the 1889/90 United States Commissioner of Labor survey to estimate the full Almost Ideal Demand System with demographic and other covariates. Price data were obtained from the Aldrich Report of 1892. The purpose is to make better use of the...

One of the principal types of wealth accumulation in the United States has been real property, especially in the form of homes as the society became more urban and less agricultural. At present, almost two-thirds of all American households reside in owner-occupied structures. The present paper...

This paper examines homeownership and housing demand for a sample of approximately 6,800 urban, industrial workers in the United States for the period 1889/90. Using data from the Sixth and Seventh Annual Reports of the U.S. Commissioner of Labor, housing demand is viewed as a two part process:...

This paper estimates a cost of living index for 39 states of the United States and the District of Columbia, as well as for 70 individual cities and towns, for the year 1890. It gives an overall index in addition to seven commodity subindices (food, clothing, housing, fuel and lighting,...

The Antebellum Puzzle' describes the situation of declining stature and rising mortality in the three decades prior to the American Civil War (1861-65). It is labeled a puzzle, since this period was one of rapid economic growth and development in the United States. Much of the debate regarding...

This paper examines the impact of New Deal relief programs on infant mortality, noninfant mortality and general fertility rates in major U.S. cities between 1929 and 1940. We estimate the effects using a variety of specifications and techniques for a panel of 114 cities for which data on relief...

This paper analyzes a five percent systematic sample of households from the manuscripts of the New York State Census of 1865 for seven counties (Allegany, Dutchess, Montgomery, Rensselaer, Steuben, Tompkins, and Warren). The sample was selected to provide a diversity of locations, settlement...