Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-14T06:19:44.905Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Inequality in Nineteenth-Century Manhattan: Evidence from the Housing Market

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 May 2020

Rowena Gray
Rowena Gray*
Affiliation:
Economics, University of California Merced
*
Email: rgray6@ucmerced.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Historical inequality is difficult to measure, especially at the subcountry level and beyond the top income shares. This article presents new evidence on the level of inequality in Manhattan from 1880 to 1910 using housing rents. Rental prices and characteristics, including geocodable locations, were collected from newspapers and provide extensive geographic coverage of the island, relevant for the overwhelming majority of its population where renting predominated. This provides a measure of consumption inequality at the household level, which helps to develop the picture of urban inequality for this period, when income and wealth measures are scarce. For large American cities, but particularly for New York, housing made up a large share of consumption expenditure and its consumption cannot be substituted, so this is a reliable and feasible way to identify the true trends in urban inequality across space and time.

Type
Special Issue Article
Information
Social Science History , Volume 44 , Special Issue 3: Selection Bias and Social Science History , Fall 2020 , pp. 571 - 582
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Social Science History Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Albouy, David, and Zabek, Mike (2016) “Housing inequality.” NBER Working Paper 21916. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alfani, Guido (2019) “Wealth and income inequality in the long run of history,” in Diebolt, Claude and Haupert, Michael J (eds.) Handbook of Cliometrics. Berlin: Springer: 1173–1201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alfani, Guido, and Ryckbosch, Wouter (2016) “Growing apart in early modern Europe? A comparison of inequality trends in Italy and the Low Countries, 1500–1800.” Explorations in Economic History (62): 143–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anbinder, Robert C. (2001) Five Points. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Atack, Jeremy, and Margo, Robert A (1998) “Location, location, location! The price gradient for vacant urban land: New York, 1835–1900.” Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics 16(2): 151–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Attanasio, Orazio, Berloffa, Gabriella, Blundell, Richard, and Preston, Ian (2002) “From earnings inequality to consumption inequality.” Economic Journal (112): 52–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chao, Elaine L., and Utgoff, Kathleen P (2006) “100 Years of US consumer spending.” Washington, DC: US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics.Google Scholar
Chapin, Robert C. (1909) The Standard of Living among Workingmen’s Families in New York City. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Charity Organization Society of the City of New York (1900) The Charities Review, Volume X. New York: The State Board of Charities.Google Scholar
Clark, Gregory (2002) “Shelter from the storm: Housing and the Industrial Revolution, 1550–1909.” Journal of Economic History 62(2): 489–511.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Drelichman, Mauricio, and Aguda, David Gonzalez (2014) “What price a roof? Housing and the cost of living in sixteenth-century Toledo?” Explorations in Economic History 54(1): 27–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eicholtz, Piet, Straefmans, Stefan, and Theebe, Marcel (2012) “The Amsterdam rent index: The housing market and the economy, 1550–1850.” Journal of Housing Economics (21): 269–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geloso, Vincent, and Lindert, Peter H. (2020) “Relative costs of living, for richer and poorer, 1688–1914.” Cliometrica: 1–26, doi: 10.1007/s11698-019-00197-8.Google Scholar
Gray, Rowena, and Bowman, Rocco (2020) “Locating the Manhattan housing market: GIS evidence for 1880–1910.” Working Paper, University of California, Merced.Google Scholar
James, John A., and Thomas, Mark (2000) “Industrialization and wage inequality in nineteenth-century urban America.” Journal of Income Distribution (9): 39–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kholodolin, Konstantin A. (2016) “War, housing rents, and free market: Berlin’s rental housing market during World War I.” European Review of Economic History (20): 322–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laidlaw, Walter (1932) Population of the City of New York, 1890–1930. New York: Cities Census Committee.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lindert, Peter H. (2015) “Making the most of capital in the twenty-first century.” Annales (English ed.) 70(1): 21–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lindert, Peter H., and Williamson, Jeffrey G (1983) American Inequality: A Macroeconomic History. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Lindert, Peter H., and Williamson, Jeffrey G (2013) “American incomes before and after the Revolution.” Journal of Economic History 73(3): 725–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Margo, Robert A. (1996) “The rental price of housing in New York City, 1830–1860.” Journal of Economic History 56(3): 605–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCants, Anne E. C. (2007) “Inequality among the poor of eighteenth century Amsterdam.” Explorations in Economic History (44): 1–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meyer, Bruce D., and Sullivan, James X (2017) “Consumption and income inequality in the US since the 1960s.” NBER Working Paper 23655. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Milanovic, Branko, Lindert, Peter H, and Williamson, Jeffrey G (2010) “Pre-Industrial inequality.” Economic Journal 121(551): 255–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Piketty, Thomas, and Goldhammer, Arthur (2017) Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rees, Albert (1961) Real Wages in Manufacturing, 1890–1914. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Riis, Jacob (1997) How the Other Half Lives. New York: Penguin.Google Scholar
Roine, Jesper, and Waldenstrom, Daniel (2015) “Long-run trends in the distribution of income and wealth,” in Atkinson, Anthony B and Bourguignon, Francois (eds.) Handbook of Income Distribution, Vol. 2. Amsterdam: North Holland: 469–592.Google Scholar
Ruggles, Steven J., Alexander, Trent, Genadek, Katie, Goeken, Ronald, Schroeder, Matthew B, and Sobek, Matthew (2010) Integrated Public Use Microdata Series: Version 5.0 [machine-readable database]. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota.Google Scholar
Scherzer, Kenneth A. (1992) The Unbounded Community: Neighborhood Life and Social Structure in New York City, 1830–1875. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Soltow, Lee L., and van Zanden, Jan Luiten (1998) Income and Wealth Inequality in the Netherlands, 16th–20th Century. Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis.Google Scholar
Villarreal, Carlos, Bettenhausen, Brian, Hanss, Eric, and Hersh, Jonathan (2014) “Historical health conditions in major US cities.” Historical Methods 47(2): 67–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, Carroll D. (1970) The Slums of Baltimore, Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia (Reprint of 1894 Seventh Special Report of the Commissioner of Labor, Washington, DC: Government Printing Office). New York: Arno.Google Scholar