"This paper explores the effect of mortalities from the 1918 influenza pandemic and World War I on wage growth in the manufacturing sector of U.S. states and cities from 1914-1919. The hypothesis is that both events decreased manufacturing labor supply, thereby initially increasing the marginal product of labor and wages. The results reveal that states and cities having had greater influenza mortalities experienced higher wage growth-roughly 2-3 percentage points for a 10% change in per capita mortalities. World War I combat mortalities also had a positive, but smaller, effect on wage growth." ("JEL" N62, N32, N92, I12) Copyright (c) 2008 Western Economic Association International.
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Article provided by Western Economic Association International in its journal Economic Inquiry.
Volume (Year): 47 (2009) Issue (Month): 4 (October) Pages: 711-725 Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML
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