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Title: Essays on Applied Historical Labour Economics
Citation Type: Dissertation/Thesis
Publication Year: 2019
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Abstract: The three papers in this thesis reflect original microdata collection and linking that im-prove how research can be done with historical labour data. In the first paper Zach Wardand I estimate the e↵ect of age at arrival for immigrant outcomes with a new dataset ofEllis Island arrivals linked to the 1940 U.S. Census. Using within-family variation, wefind that arriving at an older age, or having more childhood exposure to the Europeanenvironment, led to a more negative wage gap relative to the native born. Infant arrivalshad a positive wage gap relative to natives, in contrast to a negative gap for teenagearrivals. Therefore, a key determinant of immigrant outcomes during the Age of MassMigration was the country of residence during critical periods of childhood development.In the second paper Tim Hatton and I examine the votes that led to six British coloniesfederating to become the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901. We analyse support forFederation using a new dataset of district-level voting records that we associate with anew dataset of district-level census characteristics. We find little support for the viewthat sectoral interests were important. On the other hand, we find greater support forFederation in districts with a greater share of migrants from outside the colony, amongthose further from the seats of colonial government, and with a greater share of females.Therefore, support for Federation seems to have been associated more with migration,distance, and possibly female surage, than with trade.In the final, and sole-authored, paper I find that surname analysis suggests a low levelof social mobility in Tasmania over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Specifically,newly constructed microdata records suggest that the levels of various markers of statusbetween generations are persistent. Surnames are drawn from birth records, while status s signalled by membership of certain groups, such as being a parliamentarian or attendinga certain school in the nineteenth century, and being awarded an Order of Australia orin the legal profession in the late twentieth century. Therefore, social status in Tasmaniaappears to be correlated over multiple generation
Url: https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/164984/1/Rohan_alexander_Thesis_2019.pdf
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Authors: Alexander, Rohan
Institution: The Australian National University
Department: Economics
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Pages: 1-139
Data Collections: IPUMS USA - Ancestry Full Count Data
Topics: Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Methodology and Data Collection, Migration and Immigration
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