Faculty Profiles

Jason Long has taught economics in a liberal arts context since 2002. After attending Wheaton College as an undergraduate, he studied economics at Northwestern University, where he specialized in economic history and received his Ph.D. He taught for nine years at Colby College in Maine, after which he returned to Wheaton, where he holds the Bennett Chair of Economics.

He teaches macroeconomics, game theory, and multiple courses in global economic history. His research focuses on socioeconomic and geographic mobility in a historical context. His work has been supported by two National Science Foundation grants, which have allowed him to collaborate extensively with undergraduate researchers. His work has been published in top economics journals, including the American Economic Review, the Economic Journal, and the Journal of Economic History.

Northwestern University
Ph.D., Economics
2002

Wheaton College
B.A., Economics
1996

• Nineteenth-Century British and U.S. Labor Markets
• Migration and Labor Mobility
• Economic History
• Social and Economic Mobility

• Economic History Association
• American Economic Association
• Economic History Society (UK)
• Cliometric Society
• European Historical Economics Society

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Personal Website

Linked Census Data and Social Mobility Analysis in the Very Long Run
ERSA Conference: Longitudinal Data in African History, Stellenbosch University, South Africa

Refugees From Dust and Shrinking Land: Tracking the Dust Bowl Migrants
Economic History Association Annual Meeting, Nashville, TN

Grandfathers Matter(ed): Occupational Mobility Across Three Generations in the U.S. and Britain, 1850-1910
European Historical Economics Society Conference, London, England

Current Research

My research analyzes patterns of geographic and socioeconomic mobility in a historical context. My focus is on the British and U.S. labor markets from the mid nineteenth century through the mid twentieth century. I have made extensive use of data on individuals linked between various population censuses from 1850 to 1940. Specific issues include inter- and intragenerational social mobility, rural-urban and trans-Atlantic migration, the return to primary schooling, and comparative patterns of mobility between the British and U.S. labor markets from 1850 to the present.

I am currently collaborating with Henry Siu (University of British Columbia) and Paul Gaggl (UNC Charlotte) on a project that explores the impact of the Great Depression on geographic and occupational mobility in the U.S. I am also working with my Wheaton colleague Jeremy Cook to explore the long-run impact of growing up near incidents of lynching on African-American men in the early twentieth century.

Grandfathers Matter(ed): Occupational Mobility Across Three Generations in the U.S. and Britain, 1850-1910, Economic Journal
Jason Long, Joseph Ferrie, 2018

Refugees from Dust and Shrinking Land: Tracking the Dust Bowl Migrants, Journal of Economic History
Jason Long, Henry Siu, 2018

Intergenerational Occupational Mobility in Britain and the U.S. Since 1850, American Economic Review
Jason Long, Joseph Ferrie, 2013

Intergenerational Occupational Mobility in Britain and the U.S. Since 1850: Reply, American Economic Review
Jason Long, Joseph Ferrie, 2013

The Surprising Social Mobility of Victorian Britain, European Review of Economic History
Jason Long, 2013