We should avoid three presentations on three different topics. At least one topic should be covered by two student presentations.
* Articles marked with an asterisk have been chosen for seminar presentation.

Topic 1. Social mobility: surnames vs. censuses

Long, Jason and Joseph Ferrie, "Grandfathers Matter(ed): Occupational Mobility Across Three Generations in the US and Britain, 1850-1911," Economic Journal, vol. 128 (July 2018), pp. F422-45.

Clark, Gregory and Neil Cummins, "Intergenerational Wealth Mobility in England, 1858-2012: Surnames and Social Mobility," Economic Journal, vol. 125 (February 2015), pp. 61-85.

General Background

Corak, Miles, "Income Inequality, Equality of Opportunity, and Intergenerational Mobility," Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 27, no. 3 (Summer 2013), pp. 79-102.

Guell, Maia, Jose Rodriguez and Gary Solon, "New Directions in Measuring Intergenerational Mobility," Economic Journal, special issue on intergenerational mobility, vol. 128 (July 2018), pp. F335-39.

Solon, Gary, "What Do We Know So Far About Multigenerational Social Mobility?" Economic Journal, special issue on intergenerational mobility, vol. 128 (July 2018), pp. F340-52.

More censuses

Long, Jason, "The surprising social mobility of Victorian Britain," European Review of Economic History, vol. 17 no. 1(2013), pp. 1-23.

More surnames

Clark, Gregory, Neil Cummins, Yu Hao, and Dan Diaz Vidal, "Surnames: A new source for the history of social mobility," Explorations in Economic History, vol. 55 no. 1 (2015), pp.3-24.

Clark, Gregory. The Son Also Rises. Surnames and the History of Social Mobility. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2014. A very accessible book. The working papers underlying some chapters are available on the web.

Topic 2. Measuring gender inequality in height and health

Beltran Tapia, Francisco, and Domingo Gallego-Martinez, "Where are the missing girls? Gender discrimination in 19th-century Spain," Explorations in Economic History, vol. 66 (2017), pp. 117-26.

Horrell, Sara, and Deborah Oxley, "Bargaining for Basics? Inferring decision making in nineteenth-century British households from expenditure, diet, stature, and death," European Review of Economic History, vol. 17 (2013), pp. 147-70.

Horrell, Sara, and Deborah Oxley, "Gender bias in nineteenth-century England: Evidence from factory children," Economics and Human Biology, vol. 22 (2016), pp. 47-64.

Horrell, Sara, David Meredith, and Deborah Oxley, "Measuring misery: Body mass, ageing, and gender inequality in Victorian London," Explorations in Economic History vol. 46 (2009), pp. 93-119.

A rare study - based on first names - in which women's social mobility can be tracked:

Olivetti, Claudia, M. Daniele Paserman, and Laura Salisbury, "Three-generation mobility in the United States, 1850-1940: The role of maternal and paternal grandparents," Explorations in Economic History, vol. 70 (2018), pp. 73-90.

Topic 3: Inequality and race in the US

This list is not carefully curated. Though the authors are all well known scholars and the articles very good, the list is intended more as inspiration than as a strong recommendation at the expense of other work.

* Boustan, Leah Platt, "Competition in the Promised Land: Black Migration and Racial Wage Convergence in the North, 1940-1970," Journal of Economic History, vol. 69, no. 3 (Sept. 2009), pp. 755-782.

Collins, William, "African-American Economic Mobility in the 1940s: A Portrait from the Palmer Survey," Journal of Economic History, vol. 60, no. 3 (Sept. 2000), pp. 756-81.

Cook, Lisa, Trevon Logan, and John Parman, "Racial Segregation and Southern Lynching," Social Science History, vol. 42 (Winter 2018), pp. 635-75. (The same authors have another 2018 piece in the American Journal of Economics and Sociology.)

* Logan, Trevon and John Parman, "The National Rise in Residential Segregation," Journal of Economic History, vol. 77, no. 1 (March 2017), pp. 127-70.

Maloney, Thomas and Warren Whatley, "Making the Effort: The Contours of Racial Discrimination in Detroit's Labor Markets, 1920-1940," Journal of Economic History, vol. 55, no. 3 (Sept. 1995), pp. 465-93.

Margo, Robert, "Obama, Katrina, and the Persistence of Racial Inequality," Journal of Economic History, vol. 76, no. 2 (June 2016), pp. 301-41. (The author's presidential address to the EHA.)

* Sacerdote, Bruce, "Slavery and the Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital," Review of Economics and Statistics, vol. 87, no. 2 (May, 2005), pp. 217-234.

Topic 4: Is Piketty right about capital accumulation and inequality?

Piketty, Thomas. Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge, MA: Belknap/Harvard University Press, 2014.

Though easy to read, Piketty's book is long, making it less than ideally suited for an assignment like this. Consider (some of?) the following chapters:

5. The Capital/Income Ratio over the Long Run
6. The Capital-Labor Split in the Twenty-First Century
8. Two Worlds
10. Inequality of Capital Ownership

Allen, Robert, "Engels' Pause: Technical change, capital accumulation, and inequality in the British industrial revolution," Explorations in Economic History, vol. 46 (2009), pp. 418-35. (Capital accumulation plays an important role in this story.)

One way into Piketty is through reviews of his book. There are many! You might find the following useful. The author is an important economic historian and expert on inequality. You could also be interested in his book, co-authored with Jeff Williamson, Unequal Gains. American Growth and Inequality since 1700 as an alternative to Piketty.

Lindert, Peter. "Making the Most of Capital in the 21st Century," NBER Working Paper 20232, June 2014. (There is probably a more recent version available.)

Technical, not very historical responses to Piketty include the following.

Lawrence, Robert Z. "Recent Declines In Labor's Share In US Income: A Preliminary Neoclassical Account," NBER Working Paper 21296, June 2015. (There is probably a more recent version available.)

Rognlie, Matthew. "A Note on Piketty and Diminishing Returns to Capital," unpublished manuscript, June 2014. (Probably since published.)