Migration to the agricultural frontier and wealth accumulation, 1860-1870

I use a new data set of households linked between the 1860 and 1870 censuses to study frontier migration. Households that moved to the frontier to farm were more likely than non-migrants to have been poor, landless, and illiterate, and to have had young children. Also, after controlling for observable differences, migrants had below average abilities to accumulate wealth. These findings suggest fewer opportunities for migrants to accumulate wealth in non-frontier areas and a reason for their migration. Nonetheless, migrants fared well, accumulating wealth at high rates. The gains in wealth of migrants, especially those with long tenure on the frontier, suggest the extraordinary benefits of migration.