Full Citation
Title: Urbanization in American Economic History, 1800-2000
Citation Type: Book, Section
Publication Year: 2018
ISBN: 9780190937072
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Abstract: During its two-hundred-year history, the United States has become an urban nation. Workers and firms flowed to cities following urban-biased productivity shocks, including the new manufacturing technologies of the first and second industrial revolution and, more recently, the advent of computerization. In addition, workers were drawn to cities by improvements in the quality of urban life, especially in public health. Seminal work in urban economics by Rosen (1978) and Roback (1982) suggests that the urban wage and rental premia can be used to disentangle these competing explanations for urban growth. Novel wage and rent series for urban and rural areas back to 1820 (wages) and to 1918 (rents) show that the urban wage premium in the United States was remarkably stable over the past two centuries, ranging between 15 and 40 percent . . .
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Authors: Boustan, Leah; Bunten, Devin; Hearey, Owen
Editors: Cain, Louis, P; Fishback, Price, V; Rhode, Paul, W
Pages: 75-100
Volume Title: The Oxford Handbook of American Economic History
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Publisher Location: Oxford, England, UK
Volume: 2
Edition:
Data Collections: IPUMS USA
Topics: Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Land Use/Urban Organization
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