IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/qucehw/202002.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Inequality in nineteenth century Manhattan: Evidence from the housing market

Author

Listed:
  • Gray, Rowena

Abstract

Historical inequality is difficult to measure, especially at the sub-country level and beyond the top income shares. This paper 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.

Suggested Citation

  • Gray, Rowena, 2020. "Inequality in nineteenth century Manhattan: Evidence from the housing market," QUCEH Working Paper Series 2020-02, Queen's University Belfast, Queen's University Centre for Economic History.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:qucehw:202002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/214638/1/1691505951.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rowena Gray & Rocco Bowman, 2021. "Locating the Manhattan housing market: GIS evidence for 1880-1910," Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(3), pages 151-171, July.
    2. Carlos Villarreal & Brian Bettenhausen & Eric Hanss & Jonathan Hersh, 2014. "Historical Health Conditions in Major U.S. Cities," Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(2), pages 67-80, June.
    3. Lindert, Peter H. & Williamson, Jeffrey G., 2013. "American Incomes Before and After the Revolution," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 73(3), pages 725-765, September.
    4. Albert Rees & Donald P. Jacobs, 1961. "Real Wages in Manufacturing, 1890-1914," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number rees61-1.
    5. Orazio Attanasio & Gabriella Berloffa & Richard Blundell & Ian Preston, 2002. "From Earnings Inequality to Consumption Inequality," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(478), pages 52-59, March.
    6. Margo, Robert A., 1996. "The Rental Price of Housing in New York City, 1830–1860," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 56(3), pages 605-625, September.
    7. Claude Diebolt & Michael Haupert (ed.), 2019. "Handbook of Cliometrics," Springer Books, Springer, edition 2, number 978-3-030-00181-0, January.
    8. John A. James & Mark Thomas, 2000. "Industrialization and Wage Inequality in Nineteenth-century Urban America," Journal of Income Distribution, Ad libros publications inc., vol. 9(1), pages 4-4, June.
    9. Atack, Jeremy & Margo, Robert A, 1998. ""Location, Location, Location!" The Price Gradient for Vacant Urban Land: New York, 1835 to 1900," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 151-172, March.
    10. David Albouy & Mike Zabek, 2016. "Housing Inequality," NBER Working Papers 21916, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Alfani, Guido & 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, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 143-153.
    12. Clark, Gregory, 2002. "Shelter From The Storm: Housing And The Industrial Revolution, 1550–1909," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 62(2), pages 489-511, June.
    13. Eichholtz, Piet & Straetmans, Stefan & Theebe, Marcel, 2012. "The Amsterdam rent index: The housing market and the economy, 1550–1850," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 269-282.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Richard Rodger, 2022. "Property and inequality: Housing dynamics in a nineteenth‐century city," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 75(4), pages 1151-1181, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Konstantin A. Kholodilin, 2016. "War, housing rents, and free market: Berlin's rental housing during World War I," European Review of Economic History, European Historical Economics Society, vol. 20(3), pages 322-344.
    2. Gray, Rowena, 2018. "Selection bias in historical housing data," QUCEH Working Paper Series 2018-01, Queen's University Belfast, Queen's University Centre for Economic History.
    3. Rowena Gray & Rocco Bowman, 2021. "Locating the Manhattan housing market: GIS evidence for 1880-1910," Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(3), pages 151-171, July.
    4. Kholodilin, Konstantin A. & Limonov, Leonid E. & Waltl, Sofie R., 2021. "Housing rent dynamics and rent regulation in St. Petersburg (1880–1917)," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 81.
    5. Claudio Borio & Øyvind Eitrheim & Marc Flandreau & Clemens Jobst & Jan F Qvigstad & Ryland Thomas, 2022. "Historical monetary and financial statistics for policymakers: towards a unified framework," BIS Papers, Bank for International Settlements, number 127.
    6. Francke, Marc & Korevaar, Matthijs, 2021. "Housing markets in a pandemic: Evidence from historical outbreaks," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    7. Beach, Brian & Hanlon, W. Walker, 2023. "Historical newspaper data: A researcher’s guide," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    8. Ahlfeldt, Gabriel M. & Wendland, Nicolai, 2009. "Looming stations: Valuing transport innovations in historical context," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 105(1), pages 97-99, October.
    9. Alfani, Guido & Di Tullio, M & Fochesato, M, 2020. "The determinants of wealth inequality in the Republic of Venice (1400-1800)," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 483, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    10. Carolin Schmidt, 2018. "Home is where the health is: Housing and adult height from the late 19th to the mid-20th centuries," ERES eres2018_33, European Real Estate Society (ERES).
    11. David Agorastos & Rowena Gray & Ronan Lyons & Allison Shertzer, 2024. "The Price of Housing in the United States, 1890–2006," Working Papers 24-12, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    12. Konstantin A. Kholodilin, 2015. "War, Housing Rents, and Free Market: A Case of Berlin's Rental Housing Market during the World War I," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1477, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    13. Eichholtz, Piet & Straetmans, Stefan & Theebe, Marcel, 2012. "The Amsterdam rent index: The housing market and the economy, 1550–1850," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 269-282.
    14. Chen, Ruoyu & Jiang, Hanchen & Quintero, Luis E., 2023. "Measuring the value of rent stabilization and understanding its implications for racial inequality: Evidence from New York City," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    15. Komlos, John, 2012. "A Three-Decade “Kuhnian” History of the Antebellum Puzzle: Explaining the shrinking of the US population at the onset of modern economic growth," Discussion Papers in Economics 12758, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    16. Emma Tominey, 2010. "The Timing of Parental Income and Child Outcomes: The Role of Permanent and Transitory Shocks," CEE Discussion Papers 0120, Centre for the Economics of Education, LSE.
    17. Vincent Geloso & Peter Lindert, 2020. "Relative costs of living, for richer and poorer, 1688–1914," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 14(3), pages 417-442, September.
    18. Darrell J. Glaser & Ahmed S. Rahman, 2017. "Development and Retention of Human Capital in Large Bureaucracies," Departmental Working Papers 60, United States Naval Academy Department of Economics.
    19. Clark, Gregory & Hamilton, Gillian, 2006. "Survival of the Richest: The Malthusian Mechanism in Pre-Industrial England," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 66(3), pages 707-736, September.
    20. Sascha O. BECKER & Francesco CINNIRELLA, 2020. "Prussia Disaggregated: The Demography of its Universe of Localities in 1871," JODE - Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 86(3), pages 259-290, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    inequality; housing markets; measurement; consumption inequality; New York;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • N31 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913
    • N91 - Economic History - - Regional and Urban History - - - U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913
    • R31 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Housing Supply and Markets

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:qucehw:202002. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/chqubuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.