This paper documents differences in body size between white, black, and Indian mid-nineteenth cen... more This paper documents differences in body size between white, black, and Indian mid-nineteenth century American men and investigates the socioeconomic and demographic determinants of frame size using a unique data set of Civil War soldiers. It finds that over time men have grown taller and heavier and have relatively less abdominal fat. Abdominal fat in young adulthood was an excellent predictor of older age mortality from ischemic heart disease or stroke. Changes in frame size explain roughly three-fifths of the mortality decline among white men between 1915 and 1988 and predict even sharper declines in older age mortality between 1988 and 2022.
Park Service for the use of their Andersonville database, Heather de Somer for research assistanc... more Park Service for the use of their Andersonville database, Heather de Somer for research assistance, and Noelle Yetter for advice on data collection. Surviving Andersonville: The Benefits of Social Networks in POW Camps JEL Classification: I120, Z130 Twenty-seven percent of the Union Army prisoners captured July 1863 or later died in captivity. At Andersonville the death rate may have been as high as 40 percent. How did men survive such horrific conditions? Using two independent data sets we find that friends had a statistically significant positive effect on survival probabilities and that the closer the ties between friends as measured by such identifiers as ethnicity, kinship, and the same hometown the bigger the impact of friends on survival probabilities.
We describe the publicly available data created by the NIA funded Early Indicators program projec... more We describe the publicly available data created by the NIA funded Early Indicators program project, often referred to as the Union Army data, and the subset of these data used in "Persistent Social Networks: Civil War Veterans Who Fought Together Co-Locate in Later Life" (Costa et al., Forthcoming) [1]. This data subset can be used for reproducibility and extensions and also illustrates how the original complex data derived from archival administrative records can be used.
At the end of the U.S Civil War, veterans had to choose whether to return to their prewar communi... more At the end of the U.S Civil War, veterans had to choose whether to return to their prewar communities or move to new areas. The late 19th Century was a time of sharp urban growth as workers sought out the economic opportunities offered by cities. By estimating discrete choice migration models, we quantify the tradeoffs that veterans faced. Veterans were less likely to move far from their origin and avoided urban immigrant areas and high mortality risk areas. They also avoided areas that opposed the Civil War. Veterans were more likely to move to a neighborhood or a county where men from their same war company lived. This co-location evidence highlights the existence of persistent social networks. Such social networks had longterm consequences: veterans living close to war time friends enjoyed a longer life.
Displacing the Family And worse of all, my independence is gone; for now, of course, I shall have... more Displacing the Family And worse of all, my independence is gone; for now, of course, I shall have to live with one of my children, and I don't know which of us will hate it the most. An old man's lament, quoted in Epstein (1922) Percentage of noninstitutionalized men sixty-five or older who were
The conditions for sustainable growth and development are among the most debated topics in econom... more The conditions for sustainable growth and development are among the most debated topics in economics, and the consensus is that institutions matter greatly in explaining why some economies are more successful than others over time. Probing the long-term effects of early colonial differences on immigration policy, land distribution, and financial development in a variety of settings, Understanding Long-Run Economic Growth explores the relationship between economic conditions, growth, and inequality, with a focus on how the monopolization of resources by the political elite limits incentives for ordinary people to invest in human capital or technological discovery. Among the topics discussed are the development of credit markets in France, the evolution of transportation companies in the United Kingdom and the United States, and the organization of innovation in the United States.
Income and Retirement But it is pretty to see what money will do. Samuel Pepys (1667) Retirement ... more Income and Retirement But it is pretty to see what money will do. Samuel Pepys (1667) Retirement requires income, whether in the form of state-provided retirement or disability benefits, private pensions, income from other family members, or assets. Researchers have investigated the role that each of these income sources plays in the retirement decision, largely using cross-sectional data for the years after the 1960s. But the applicability of cross-sectional estimates to periods outside the sample range is questionable. Seventy percent of the decline in the labor force participation rates of men age sixty-five or older occurred before 1960. Retirement rates were already high by 1960, and thus only large benefit increases could have enticed those remaining in the labor force to have withdrawn. To understand why retirement rates increased prior to 1960, we must examine earlier data. An analysis of retirement requires information on retirement status, demographic characteristics (e.g., age), health, a proxy for the opportunity cost of not working (e.g., forgone income or occupation), and retirement income (e.g., pension amount). These are very strict data requirements. One of the few sources of information on the elderly of the past, the census, allows us to relate retirement status only to demographic characteristics, not to wealth. Fortunately, a data set that meets our requirements can be created from records generated by the Union army pension program. This chapter will focus on the determinants of work levels in both 1900 and 1910 among white Union army veterans receiving Union army pensions. These men were the first cohort to reach age sixty-five in the twentieth century. They also represent a very broad cross section of the population. Eighty-one percent of all white, northern men born in 1843 served in the Union army during the Civil War. These men became eligible for an extremely generous pension, and the copious records generated by the Pension Bureau bureaucracy allow us to reconstruct their life histories. Additional information can be gathered by linking pension records to other sources, such as census manuscripts, The resulting 14
When are people willing to sacrifice for the common good? What are the benefits of friendship? Ho... more When are people willing to sacrifice for the common good? What are the benefits of friendship? How do communities deal with betrayal? And what are the costs and benefits of being in a diverse community? Using the life histories of more than forty thousand Civil War soldiers, Dora Costa and Matthew Kahn answer these questions and uncover the vivid stories, social influences, and crucial networks that influenced soldiers' lives both during and after the war. Drawing information from government documents, soldiers' journals, and one of the most extensive research projects about Union Army soldiers ever undertaken, Heroes and Cowards demonstrates the role that social capital plays in people's decisions. The makeup of various companies--whether soldiers were of the same ethnicity, age, and occupation--influenced whether soldiers remained loyal or whether they deserted. Costa and Kahn discuss how the soldiers benefited from friendships, what social factors allowed some to survive the POW camps while others died, and how punishments meted out for breaking codes of conduct affected men after the war. The book also examines the experience of African-American soldiers and makes important observations about how their comrades shaped their lives. Heroes and Cowards highlights the inherent tensions between the costs and benefits of community diversity, shedding light on how groups and societies behave and providing valuable lessons for the present day.
This paper documents differences in body size between white, black, and Indian mid-nineteenth cen... more This paper documents differences in body size between white, black, and Indian mid-nineteenth century American men and investigates the socioeconomic and demographic determinants of frame size using a unique data set of Civil War soldiers. It finds that over time men have grown taller and heavier and have relatively less abdominal fat. Abdominal fat in young adulthood was an excellent predictor of older age mortality from ischemic heart disease or stroke. Changes in frame size explain roughly three-fifths of the mortality decline among white men between 1915 and 1988 and predict even sharper declines in older age mortality between 1988 and 2022.
Park Service for the use of their Andersonville database, Heather de Somer for research assistanc... more Park Service for the use of their Andersonville database, Heather de Somer for research assistance, and Noelle Yetter for advice on data collection. Surviving Andersonville: The Benefits of Social Networks in POW Camps JEL Classification: I120, Z130 Twenty-seven percent of the Union Army prisoners captured July 1863 or later died in captivity. At Andersonville the death rate may have been as high as 40 percent. How did men survive such horrific conditions? Using two independent data sets we find that friends had a statistically significant positive effect on survival probabilities and that the closer the ties between friends as measured by such identifiers as ethnicity, kinship, and the same hometown the bigger the impact of friends on survival probabilities.
We describe the publicly available data created by the NIA funded Early Indicators program projec... more We describe the publicly available data created by the NIA funded Early Indicators program project, often referred to as the Union Army data, and the subset of these data used in "Persistent Social Networks: Civil War Veterans Who Fought Together Co-Locate in Later Life" (Costa et al., Forthcoming) [1]. This data subset can be used for reproducibility and extensions and also illustrates how the original complex data derived from archival administrative records can be used.
At the end of the U.S Civil War, veterans had to choose whether to return to their prewar communi... more At the end of the U.S Civil War, veterans had to choose whether to return to their prewar communities or move to new areas. The late 19th Century was a time of sharp urban growth as workers sought out the economic opportunities offered by cities. By estimating discrete choice migration models, we quantify the tradeoffs that veterans faced. Veterans were less likely to move far from their origin and avoided urban immigrant areas and high mortality risk areas. They also avoided areas that opposed the Civil War. Veterans were more likely to move to a neighborhood or a county where men from their same war company lived. This co-location evidence highlights the existence of persistent social networks. Such social networks had longterm consequences: veterans living close to war time friends enjoyed a longer life.
Displacing the Family And worse of all, my independence is gone; for now, of course, I shall have... more Displacing the Family And worse of all, my independence is gone; for now, of course, I shall have to live with one of my children, and I don't know which of us will hate it the most. An old man's lament, quoted in Epstein (1922) Percentage of noninstitutionalized men sixty-five or older who were
The conditions for sustainable growth and development are among the most debated topics in econom... more The conditions for sustainable growth and development are among the most debated topics in economics, and the consensus is that institutions matter greatly in explaining why some economies are more successful than others over time. Probing the long-term effects of early colonial differences on immigration policy, land distribution, and financial development in a variety of settings, Understanding Long-Run Economic Growth explores the relationship between economic conditions, growth, and inequality, with a focus on how the monopolization of resources by the political elite limits incentives for ordinary people to invest in human capital or technological discovery. Among the topics discussed are the development of credit markets in France, the evolution of transportation companies in the United Kingdom and the United States, and the organization of innovation in the United States.
Income and Retirement But it is pretty to see what money will do. Samuel Pepys (1667) Retirement ... more Income and Retirement But it is pretty to see what money will do. Samuel Pepys (1667) Retirement requires income, whether in the form of state-provided retirement or disability benefits, private pensions, income from other family members, or assets. Researchers have investigated the role that each of these income sources plays in the retirement decision, largely using cross-sectional data for the years after the 1960s. But the applicability of cross-sectional estimates to periods outside the sample range is questionable. Seventy percent of the decline in the labor force participation rates of men age sixty-five or older occurred before 1960. Retirement rates were already high by 1960, and thus only large benefit increases could have enticed those remaining in the labor force to have withdrawn. To understand why retirement rates increased prior to 1960, we must examine earlier data. An analysis of retirement requires information on retirement status, demographic characteristics (e.g., age), health, a proxy for the opportunity cost of not working (e.g., forgone income or occupation), and retirement income (e.g., pension amount). These are very strict data requirements. One of the few sources of information on the elderly of the past, the census, allows us to relate retirement status only to demographic characteristics, not to wealth. Fortunately, a data set that meets our requirements can be created from records generated by the Union army pension program. This chapter will focus on the determinants of work levels in both 1900 and 1910 among white Union army veterans receiving Union army pensions. These men were the first cohort to reach age sixty-five in the twentieth century. They also represent a very broad cross section of the population. Eighty-one percent of all white, northern men born in 1843 served in the Union army during the Civil War. These men became eligible for an extremely generous pension, and the copious records generated by the Pension Bureau bureaucracy allow us to reconstruct their life histories. Additional information can be gathered by linking pension records to other sources, such as census manuscripts, The resulting 14
When are people willing to sacrifice for the common good? What are the benefits of friendship? Ho... more When are people willing to sacrifice for the common good? What are the benefits of friendship? How do communities deal with betrayal? And what are the costs and benefits of being in a diverse community? Using the life histories of more than forty thousand Civil War soldiers, Dora Costa and Matthew Kahn answer these questions and uncover the vivid stories, social influences, and crucial networks that influenced soldiers' lives both during and after the war. Drawing information from government documents, soldiers' journals, and one of the most extensive research projects about Union Army soldiers ever undertaken, Heroes and Cowards demonstrates the role that social capital plays in people's decisions. The makeup of various companies--whether soldiers were of the same ethnicity, age, and occupation--influenced whether soldiers remained loyal or whether they deserted. Costa and Kahn discuss how the soldiers benefited from friendships, what social factors allowed some to survive the POW camps while others died, and how punishments meted out for breaking codes of conduct affected men after the war. The book also examines the experience of African-American soldiers and makes important observations about how their comrades shaped their lives. Heroes and Cowards highlights the inherent tensions between the costs and benefits of community diversity, shedding light on how groups and societies behave and providing valuable lessons for the present day.
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