Migrating to Riches? Evidence from the California Gold Rush

Abstract

Gold discoveries in 1848 set off a large and extremely rapid migration to California. This article uses newly collected data from the 1850 and 1852 Censuses of Population together with the public use sample of the 1850 Census of Population to examine who went to California and how they did economically. We find that the propensity to migrate was affected by the individual's age and literacy, distance of the state from California, and average state latitude. Consistent with the historical literature, we find that economic outcomes were generally small or even zero for miners but were positive and large for nonminers.

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