Health, Information, and Migration: Geographic Mobility of Union Army Veterans, 1860-1880

Chulhee Lee

No 11207, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper explores how injuries, sickness, and geographical mobility of Union Army veterans while in service affected their post-service migrations. Wartime wounds and illnesses significantly diminished the geographical mobility of veterans after the war. Geographic moves while carrying out military missions had strong positive effects on their post-service geographic mobility. Geographic moves while in service also influenced the choice of destination among the migrants. The farther into the South a veteran had traveled while in service, the higher the probability that he would migrate to the South. Furthermore, these migrants to the South were more likely to settle in a state they had entered while in service. Increased general knowledge about geographical transfer itself, greater information on distant lands and labor markets, and reduced psychological cost of moving were probably important mechanisms by which prior mobility affected subsequent migration. I discuss some implications of the results for the elements of self-selection in migration, the roles of different types of information in migration decisions, and the overall impact of the Civil War on geographic mobility.

Date: 2005-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea and nep-his
Note: LS
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Published as Lee, Chulhee, 2008. "Health, Information, and Migration: Geographic Mobility of Union Army Veterans, 1860?1880," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 68(03), pages 862-899, September.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w11207.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Health, Information, and Migration: Geographic Mobility of Union Army Veterans, 1860–1880 (2008)
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:11207

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w11207

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 ().