Shocking Behavior: Random Wealth in Antebellum Georgia and Human Capital Across Generations

54 Pages Posted: 24 Aug 2013 Last revised: 15 May 2022

See all articles by Hoyt Bleakley

Hoyt Bleakley

University of Michigan at Ann Arbor

Joseph P. Ferrie

Northwestern University - Department of Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Date Written: August 2013

Abstract

Does the lack of wealth constrain parents' investments in the human capital of their descendants? We conduct a fifty-year followup of an episode in which such constraints would have been plausibly relaxed by a random allocation of wealth to families. We track descendants of those eligible to win in Georgia's Cherokee Land Lottery of 1832, which had nearly universal participation among adult white males. Winners received close to the median level of wealth - a large financial windfall orthogonal to parents' underlying characteristics that might have also affected their children's human capital. Although winners had slightly more children than non-winners, they did not send them to school more. Sons of winners have no better adult outcomes (wealth, income, literacy) than the sons of non-winners, and winners' grandchildren do not have higher literacy or school attendance than non-winners' grandchildren. This suggests only a limited role for family financial resources in the transmission of human capital across generations and a potentially more important role for other factors that persist through family lines.

Suggested Citation

Bleakley, Hoyt and Ferrie, Joseph P., Shocking Behavior: Random Wealth in Antebellum Georgia and Human Capital Across Generations (August 2013). NBER Working Paper No. w19348, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2315433

Hoyt Bleakley (Contact Author)

University of Michigan at Ann Arbor ( email )

500 S. State Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
United States

Joseph P. Ferrie

Northwestern University - Department of Economics ( email )

2003 Sheridan Road
Evanston, IL 60208
United States
708-491-8210 (Phone)

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
35
Abstract Views
462
PlumX Metrics