We show that the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), from its inception in the 1930s, did not insure mortgages in low income urban neighborhoods where the vast majority of urban Black Americans lived. The agency evaluated neighborhoods using block-level information collected by New Deal relief...

Foreclosures led to severe disruptions in home mortgage lending during the recent Great Recession and the Great Depression of the 1930s. It is difficult to measure these impacts in the modern market where origination, funding and servicing are separated within complex lending structures, but...

The paper examines changes in labor regulation between 1898 and 1940 in the context of issues related to rule of law in two areas. 1) Many see the 1905 <em>Lochner</em> Supreme Court decision on men's hours laws as the beginning of 30 years in which labor regulation was stymied by the doctrine of...

The growth of American governments in the twentieth century included large increases in funds for social insurance and public assistance. Social insurance has increased far more than public assistance, so "rise in the social insurance state" is a far better description of the century than "rise...

The paper examines changes in wage and hour labor regulation between 1898 and 1938. Many see the 1905 Lochner Supreme Court decision striking down hours limits for men as the beginning of 30 years in which labor regulation was stymied by the doctrine of "freedom of contract." That issue played a...

Social welfare spending on health, welfare, and insurance against adverse outcomes expanded a great deal in all of the developed countries during the 20th century. The institutional structure of the spending varies with respect to the extent that governments or market institutions provide the...

The safety nets in high-income countries before 1900 and in low-income countries today were based on savings and aid from extended family, friends, charities, churches, and small amounts from local governments. Mutual societies and eventually insurance companies offered insurance against lost...

The paper summarizes research on the heterogeneous experiences of actors in agriculture in Europe and the Americas between the First and Second World Wars. Following a period of increasing globalization of agricultural markets, the First World War sharply limited farming in the main combatant...

We analyze the impact of World War II service on income and mobility among male Army and Army Airforce veterans from various racial and ethnic groups, using linked 1940 Census, WWII enlistment, and 1969 administrative tax return data. The dataset includes non-Hispanic White, Black, Hispanic,...

Are the costs of discrimination mainly borne by the targeted group or by society? This paper examines both individual and aggregate costs of ethnic discrimination. Studying Germans living in the U.S. during World War I, an event that abruptly downgraded their previously high social standing, we...