About

Joseph Ferrie is an economic historian who specializes in the use of micro-level longitudinal data to study economic mobility. His research involves analyzing data from census manuscripts, passenger ship records, tax lists, and city directories to compare mobility patterns in Britain, the United States, and France from the 1850s to the present. He is particularly interested in understanding the link between early-life circumstances and later life outcomes, as well as the migration from rural areas to cities and towns. Ferrie is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and contributes to the field by examining historical development of American labor markets, economic political economy, and economic demography.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Psychology
• Economic growth
• Demography
• Political Science
• Developmental psychology
• Economics
• Medicine
• Law
• Psychiatry
• Biology
• Environmental health
• Internal medicine
• Geography
• Demographic economics
• Gerontology
• Econometrics
• Social psychology

Selected publications

• Leveraging Administrative Data Linkages to Study Waterborne Lead Exposure in Longitudinal Aging Cohort Studies

  Innovation in Aging · 2025-12-01

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Lead (Pb) is a neurotoxin with lasting cognitive, behavioral, and physiological effects, particularly when exposure occurs in early childhood. Nearly half of the U.S. population today experienced Pb exposure during this critical developmental period, yet few studies have examined its long-term health consequences using a life course perspective. We aim to demonstrate the feasibility of aging cohort studies to construct a phenotype of early childhood Pb exposure via administrative data linkages. The Boston Early Adversity and Mortality Study integrated municipal, state, and federal records with data from three Boston-based, socioeconomically diverse longitudinal cohorts (the Normative Aging Study [NAS] and the Grant and Glueck [GG] cohorts of the Harvard Study of Adult Development) and added siblings (NBEAMS=13,151; nNAS=9,972, nGG=3,179). Pb exposure was operationalized using linkage-derived information on water service line materials (non-Pb, Pb, mixed Pb and non-Pb) and municipal water pH (continuous) anchored to participants’ residential home address at birth. We examined Pb exposure patterns by childhood SES status. We identified birth locations for 99% of the 12,559 U.S.-born BEAMS participants, spanning 688 unique city-state combinations. Pb exposure could be estimated for 52% of 688 birth locations, covering 93% (n = 11,654) of U.S.-born BEAMS participants. Pb exposure followed a socioeconomic gradient, χ2(4)=1,035.9, p<.0001, such that 90%, 66%, and 37% of the lowest- (Glueck), middle- (NAS), and highest- (Grant) SES cohorts, respectively, had the highest Pb exposure levels. We discuss the value of administrative data linkages in reconstructing environmental exposures and advancing life course research.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Mobilizing the manpower of mothers: Childcare under the Lanham Act during WWII

  Explorations in Economic History · 2025-04-15 · 3 citations

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Economics in America: An Immigrant Economist Explores the Land of Inequality

  Journal of Economic Literature · 2024-03-01 · 13 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Joseph P. Ferrie of Northwestern University and NBER reviews “Economics in America: An Immigrant Economist Explores the Land of Inequality” by Angus Deaton. The Econlit abstract of this book begins: “Explores the positives and negatives of economics as both a science and a profession, presenting insights from the author's personal experiences as a naturalized US citizen and academic economist.”

  PublisherDOI

• Mobilizing the Manpower of Mothers: Childcare Under the Lanham Act During Wwii

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01 · 2 citations

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Mobilizing the Manpower of Mothers: Childcare under the Lanham Act during WWII

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2024-07-01

  reportOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  provided data on WWII contracts (Brunet-Koustas WWII Contracts Data).Brianna Alderman coded the war contracts.Adithi Attada helped with a host of last minute tasks.Blake Heller

  PublisherDOI

• IN THE PALM OF OUR HAND: HUMAN-LED ADMINISTRATIVE DATA LINKAGE TO AUGMENT LONGITUDINAL AGING STUDIES

  Innovation in Aging · 2024-12-01

  articleOpen access

  Abstract A robust literature has documented associations of adverse early experiences with poor lifespan health (Hughes et al., 2017). The evidence with respect to aging-related outcomes has been largely derived from population-based longitudinal studies, which predominantly rely on retrospective assessments of childhood experiences. Given the modest agreement between prospective and retrospective measures of early life exposures (Baldwin et al., 2019), it is unknown whether the well-established associations of early adversity with later-life health may replicate in prospective designs. This presentation uses the Boston Early Adversity and Mortality Study (BEAMS) to illustrate a novel approach leveraging recently-digitalized, full-count U.S. Censuses from 1900 to 1940 to obtain prospective data on the early-life family and neighborhood conditions for participants in three, all-male longitudinal aging studies (Normative Aging Study, 1961+, n=2280; Harvard Study of Adult Development, 1938+: Grant cohort, n=458, Glueck cohort, n=267). The authors will describe key steps of the human-led data linkage (“hand-linkage”) process, and present results on linkage performance and value added to the longitudinal studies. Hand-linkage identified 10,146 female and male siblings of the original cohort members. Among original cohort members born prior to each Census, hand-linkage identified 68.6% (1900), 76.3% (1910), 88.5% (1920), 88.0% (1930), and 87.9% (1940) participants, compared to match rates of 24%-36% via a commonly used algorithm (Abramitzky et al., 2021 with Jaro-Winkler adjustment). Relative to hand-linkage, the sensitivity and specificity of the algorithmic approach was 31.2% and 98.2%, respectively. Findings support human-led linkage as an effective strategy to augment the scientific value of longitudinal aging studies.

  PublisherDOI

• LIFESPAN SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS AND MORTALITY USING 1900–1940 CENSUSES: FINDINGS FROM THE NORMATIVE AGING STUDY

  Innovation in Aging · 2024-12-01

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Early and midlife socioeconomic status (SES) are linked to all-cause mortality, but few studies have examined their independent and joint associations using multidimensional, prospective SES measures and track mortality over extended periods. As described in the Dorame et al. presentation in this symposium, the Boston Early Adversity and Mortality Study (BEAMS) acquired prospective data on the early-life circumstances of three well-characterized male cohorts via linkage to the 1900-1940 US Federal Censuses. This study leverages BEAMS data to test the independent and joint associations of early and midlife SES with all-cause mortality in 1,303 men from a BEAMS cohort, the Normative Aging Study. Early SES, assessed at baseline (earliest available Census before age 18), was a composite combining paternal literacy (1=yes, 0=no) and z-standardized paternal occupational income. Midlife SES was a z-score composite of men’s occupational standing, education, and income at study entry (mean age=42). Mortality status was followed through December 2020 (mean follow-up since baseline: 77 years). Early SES was weakly and positively correlated with midlife SES (r=.17, p<.0001). In Cox regression, each 1-SD higher early SES was associated with 8% lower mortality risk (95%CI: 0.84, 1.00). Each 1-SD higher midlife SES was associated with 3% lower mortality risk (95%CI: 0.95,0.99), adjusted for early SES. The main effect of midlife SES weakened the association of early SES with mortality by only 2%. Early SES did not moderate the association of midlife SES with mortality. Our findings support largely independent contributions of early and midlife SES to all-cause mortality risk.

  PublisherDOI

• Mobilizing the Manpower of Mothers: Childcare Under the Lanham Act During WWII

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Women and the Econometrics of Family Trees

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2023-01-01

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Women and the Econometrics of Family Trees

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2023-08-01

  reportOpen access

  We present an econometric structure for the analysis of intergenerational mobility that integrates non-linearities, the role of maternal-side effects and the impact of grandparents.We show how previously estimated models are special cases of this general framework and what specific assumptions each embeds.Our analysis of linked U. S. data 1900-40 reveals the extent to which inadequate consideration of assortative mating and the impact of mothers produces misleading conclusions.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Lee J. Alston

  36 shared

• Werner Troesken

  University of Pittsburgh

  18 shared

• Karen Rolf

  University of Nebraska at Omaha

  18 shared

• Hoyt Bleakley

  12 shared

• Jason Long

  9 shared

• Jonathan Rothbaum

  United States Census Bureau

  8 shared

• Brian Beach

  University College London

  8 shared

• Martin Saavedra

  Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

  7 shared

Labs

• Material History LabPI

Education

• PhD, Economics

  University of Chicago

  1992

• MA, Economics

  University of Chicago

  1987

• BA, Economics and History

  Williams College

  1983