Capital Destruction and Economic Growth: The Effects of Sherman's March, 1850-1920

James Feigenbaum, James Lee and Filippo Mezzanotti

No 25392, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Using General William Sherman’s 1864–65 military march through Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina during the American Civil War, this paper studies the effect of capital destruction on medium and long-run local economic activity, and the role of financial markets in the recovery process. We match an 1865 US War Department map of Sherman’s march to county-level demographic, agricultural, and manufacturing data from the 1850-1920 US Censuses. We show that the capital destruction induced by the March led to a large contraction in agricultural investment, farming asset prices, and manufacturing activity. Elements of the decline in agriculture persisted through 1920. Using information on local banks and access to credit, we argue that the underdevelopment of financial markets played a role in weakening the recovery.

JEL-codes: N21 N41 N51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-fdg, nep-gro, nep-his and nep-ure
Note: CF DAE
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

Published as James Feigenbaum & James Lee & Filippo Mezzanotti, 2022. "Capital Destruction and Economic Growth: The Effects of Sherman’s March, 1850–1920," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, vol 14(4), pages 301-342.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w25392.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Capital Destruction and Economic Growth: The Effects of Sherman's March, 1850–1920 (2022)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:25392

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w25392

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().