How mobile is our society? How easy is it to go from rags to riches? An integral part of the American Dream is that American society has high degrees of social mobility. Pew's Economic Mobility Project has been studying social mobility in the United States. In a recent report, they looked at the characteristics of those who are socially mobile (and note even these are the minority as most people are not socially mobile). In the United States, the upwardly mobile are more likely to be white, married and have a college degree. Wall Street Journal coverage of this research is here.
My colleague and former PhD student Gareth Campbell has created a website about the British Railway Mania - click here . This episode has been described by the Economist as probably the greatest bubble in human history. Gareth's website provides background on the Mania and posits some explanations for the 'bubble'. In his explanation of why the bubble happened, Gareth places a lot of emphasis on investor myopia regarding future dividends and uncalled capital. His study of investors during the episode does not support the view that this episode was fuelled by naive and irrational investors.