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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: longnshort who wrote (1268818)	10/12/2020 3:29:55 PM
From: Jamie153	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1580041

The NBER has a paper on colony income. It's long but here's a piece. Check the "no wealth" part in the chart below. "The southern colonies were the richest by far, but their lead over New England and the Middle Colonies declined over time. Even including slaves and servants, the colonies had a more egalitarian income distribution than Europe." Basically, the colonies were better off than England and the South was by far richer than the North. "Most of the wide gap between southern and northern incomes in 1774 has a simple explanation. In 1774, unlike 1860 and later, the South had a very different occupation mix, with a much higher propertied share and fewer poor. We find these sharp contrasts between the regional occupation mixes among free household heads in 1774: New Middle Southern England colonies colonies Farm operators 43.9 25.8 72.7 Professions, commerce, crafts 11.0 32.5 14.3 No occupation given, some wealth 16.7 28.7 11.0 Menial labourers + those with no wealth 28.4 13.0 1.9 Southern farm operators not only had higher average incomes than other farmers, but they constituted a larger share of households, while low-paying occupations took a lower share among free southerners. What drove the income gap between regions was not pay differentials mysteriously unexploited by potential migrants, but rather a mix of southern occupations featuring those for which entry required prior accumulation of political connections and wealth in a world of imperfect capital markets. This point can be supported by the following accounting exercise: Of the 107 per cent gap between average free household income in the South ($705) and the Middle Colonies ($340), most is accounted for when the South is given the occupational mix of the Middle Colonies, and only a small share is due to differences in average rates of pay by occupation."