Recruitment Restrictions and labor markets: evidence from the post-bellum U.S. south

Suresh Naidu
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Suresh Naidu: Harvard University

No 1114, Working Papers from Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section.

Abstract: This paper estimates the impacts of labor-mobility restrictions on job-transitions and wages in the postbellum U.S. south. In particuliar, I estimate the effects of changes in criminal fines, collected from BLS commission labor reports, charged for "enticement" (offers made to workers already under contract) on sharecropper mobility, tenancy choice, and agricultural wages. I present three different pieces of evidence. The first is a retrospective work history panel of farmers from Jefferson County, Arkansas. The second is a state-year panel, using USDA agricultural wages as a dependent variable. The third is a cohort-state regresssion using the 1940 IPUMS census micro sample, estimating the effects of anti-enticement laws on the returns to experience in agricultural labor. I find that a 10% increase in the fine ($13) charged for enticement a.) lowered the probably of a move by black sharecroppers by 6 percentage points, a 12% decline, and b.) lowered agricultural wages, by reducing the exit probability to sharecropping, by 0.11 % (1 cent of daily wages), and c.) lowered the returns to experience in agriculture for blacks by 0.6% per year. These results are consistent with the on-the-job search model, where the enticement fine raises the cost of offering a job to employed workers.

Keywords: monopsony papers; wages; crime; sharecroppers; labor mobility; job transitions; agricultural wages (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I11 J42 L13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008-12
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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