Did the first settlers become wealthier than later arrivals? This is the question Jeanne Cilliers, Erik Green and Robert Ross ask in a new paper, now available online. They find that those who arrived early located their farms in the more climatologically suitable areas of the district and utilised their superior lands to accumulate wealth more quickly than latecomers. Owing to institutional changes that favoured later British arrivals, however, they also show that the existence of an early-arrival premium did not mean persistence in land ownership.

The paper is available here:https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ehr.13188