I am a Lecturer (~US Assistant Professor) at The Australian National University. My research interests are in labor economics and economic history. Research in this area has been reinvigorated with the mass digitization of historical census files by the fine folks at IPUMS.

I will be joining Baylor University's Department of Economics as an Assistant Professor in August 2018.

You can contact me at: Zach.A.Ward (at) gmail.com.

Working Papers

1. The Ethnic Segregation of Immigrants in the United States from 1850 to 1940, with Katherine Eriksson, June 2018

under review

2. The Not-So-Hot Melting Pot: The Persistence of Outcomes for Descendants of the Age of Mass Migration, June 2017

revisions requested

3. Have language skills always been so valuable? The low return to English fluency during the Age of Mass Migration, April 2018

under review

4. There and Back (and Back) Again: Repeat Migration to the United States, 1897-1936, March 2016

Journal Articles

1. Age at Arrival and Assimilation during the Age of Mass Migration (with Rohan Alexander)

The Journal of Economic History, September 2018 (forthcoming)

2. Birds of Passage: Return Migration, Self-Selection and Immigration Quotas

Explorations in Economic History, April 2017

3. Immigration Quotas, World War I, and Emigrant Flows from the US in the Early 20th Century (with Michael J. Greenwood)

Explorations in Economic History, January 2015

4. Who Crossed the Border? Self-Selection of Mexican Migrants in the Early 20th Century (with Edward Kosack)

The Journal of Economic History, December 2014

Other Publications

1. International Migration in the Atlantic Economy 1850-1940 (with Timothy J. Hatton)

Handbook of Cliometrics (2nd edition), Spring 2019 (forthcoming)

2. The Circular Flow: Return Migration from the United States in the Early 1900s

The Journal of Economic History, June 2016 [dissertation summary]