IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jlabec/v28y2010i2p413-445.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Recruitment Restrictions and Labor Markets: Evidence from the Postbellum U.S. South

Author

Listed:
  • Suresh Naidu

Abstract

This article studies the effect of recruitment restrictions on mobility and wages in the postbellum U.S. South. I estimate the effects of criminal fines charged for "enticement" (recruiting workers already under contract) on sharecropper mobility, tenancy choice, and agricultural wages. I find that a $13 (10%) increase in the enticement fine lowered the probability of a move by black sharecroppers by 12%, daily wages by 1 cent (.1%), and the returns to experience for blacks by 0.6% per year. These results are consistent with an on-the-job search model, where the enticement fine raises the cost of recruiting an employed worker. (c) 2010 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.

Suggested Citation

  • Suresh Naidu, 2010. "Recruitment Restrictions and Labor Markets: Evidence from the Postbellum U.S. South," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(2), pages 413-445, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jlabec:v:28:y:2010:i:2:p:413-445
    DOI: 10.1086/651512
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/651512
    File Function: link to full text
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/651512?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Reid, Joseph D., 1973. "Sharecropping As An Understandable Market Response: The Post-Bellum South," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 33(1), pages 106-130, March.
    2. Alston, Lee J. & Kauffman, Kyle D., 1997. "Agricultural Chutes and Ladders: New Estimates of Sharecroppers and “True Tenants” in the South, 1900–1920," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 57(02), pages 464-475, June.
    3. Fishback, Price V., 1989. "Debt peonage in postbellum Georgia," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 219-236, April.
    4. David Card & Alan B. Krueger, 1992. "School Quality and Black-White Relative Earnings: A Direct Assessment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(1), pages 151-200.
    5. Pierre Cahuc & Fabien Postel-Vinay & Jean-Marc Robin, 2006. "Wage Bargaining with On-the-Job Search: Theory and Evidence," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(2), pages 323-364, March.
    6. Fabien Postel-Vinay & Jean-Marc Robin, 2002. "Equilibrium Wage Dispersion with Worker and Employer Heterogeneity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(6), pages 2295-2350, November.
    7. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/dc0ckec3fcb29ms9850c12h1p is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Daron Acemoglu & Alexander Wolitzky, 2011. "The Economics of Labor Coercion," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(2), pages 555-600, March.
    9. Robert A. Margo, 1990. "Race and Schooling in the South, 1880-1950: An Economic History," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number marg90-1, March.
    10. Pierre Cahuc & Fabien Postel-Vinay & Jean-Marc Robin, 2006. "Wage bargaining with on-the-job search: theory and evidence," Post-Print hal-03471856, HAL.
    11. Mukherjee, Anindita & Ray, Debraj, 1995. "Labor tying," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 207-239, August.
    12. Hanes, Christopher, 1996. "Turnover Cost and the Distribution of slave Labor in Anglo-America," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 56(2), pages 307-329, June.
    13. Kenneth J. Arrow, 1998. "What Has Economics to Say about Racial Discrimination?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 91-100, Spring.
    14. Beaudry, Paul & DiNardo, John, 1991. "The Effect of Implicit Contracts on the Movement of Wages over the Business Cycle: Evidence from Micro Data," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(4), pages 665-688, August.
    15. Marianne Bertrand & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 991-1013, September.
    16. Warren C. Whatley, 1985. "A History of Mechanization in the Cotton South: The Institutional Hypothesis," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 100(4), pages 1191-1215.
    17. Pranab K. Bardhan, 1983. "Labor-tying in a Poor Agrarian Economy: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 98(3), pages 501-514.
    18. Murphy, Kevin M & Welch, Finis, 1990. "Empirical Age-Earnings Profiles," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 8(2), pages 202-229, April.
    19. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/c8dmi8nm4pdjkuc9g8grh35j2 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Becker, Gary S., 1971. "The Economics of Discrimination," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 2, number 9780226041162, September.
    21. Fabien Postel-Vinay & Jean-Marc Robin, 2002. "Equilibrium Wage Dispersion with Worker and Employer Heterogeneity," Post-Print hal-03458567, HAL.
    22. Burdett, Kenneth & Mortensen, Dale T, 1998. "Wage Differentials, Employer Size, and Unemployment," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 39(2), pages 257-273, May.
    23. Fabien Postel-Vinay & Jean-Marc Robin, 2002. "Equilibrium wage dispersion with worker and employer heterogeneity," Post-Print hal-03587660, HAL.
    24. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/dc0ckec3fcb29ms985085gkbp is not listed on IDEAS
    25. Anne O. Krueger, 1963. "The Economics of Discrimination," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 71, pages 481-481.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Suresh Naidu, 2008. "Recruitment Restrictions and labor markets: evidence from the post-bellum U.S. south," Working Papers 1114, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    2. Suresh Naidu, 2008. "Recruitment Restrictions and labor markets: evidence from the post-bellum U.S. south," Working Papers 1114, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    3. Simon Jäger & Benjamin Schoefer & Samuel Young & Josef Zweimüller, 2020. "Wages and the Value of Nonemployment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 135(4), pages 1905-1963.
    4. Morchio, Iacopo & Moser, Christian, 2018. "The Gender Pay Gap: Micro Sources and Macro Consequences," MPRA Paper 99276, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 24 Mar 2020.
    5. Bauer, Anja & Lochner, Benjamin, 2020. "History dependence in wages and cyclical selection: Evidence from Germany," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    6. Morchio, Iacopo & Moser, Christian, 2018. "The Gender Pay Gap: Micro Sources and Macro Consequences," MPRA Paper 99276, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 24 Mar 2020.
    7. Shintaro Yamaguchi, 2010. "Job Search, Bargaining, and Wage Dynamics," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(3), pages 595-631, July.
    8. Luca Flabbi, 2010. "Gender Discrimination Estimation In A Search Model With Matching And Bargaining," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 51(3), pages 745-783, August.
    9. Lukesch, Veronika & Zwick, Thomas, 2021. "Outside options drive wage inequalities in continuing jobs: Evidence from a natural experiment," ZEW Discussion Papers 21-003, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    10. Christopher Taber & Rune Vejlin, 2020. "Estimation of a Roy/Search/Compensating Differential Model of the Labor Market," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(3), pages 1031-1069, May.
    11. David Card & Ana Rute Cardoso & Joerg Heining & Patrick Kline, 2018. "Firms and Labor Market Inequality: Evidence and Some Theory," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(S1), pages 13-70.
    12. Elhanan Helpman & Oleg Itskhoki & Marc-Andreas Muendler & Stephen J. Redding, 2017. "Trade and Inequality: From Theory to Estimation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 84(1), pages 357-405.
    13. Moser, Christian, 2016. "How Could Wage Inequality Within and Across Enterprises be Reduced?," MPRA Paper 95381, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Gregory Veramendi, 2012. "Labor Market Dynamics: A Model of Search and Human Capital Accumulation," 2012 Meeting Papers 1059, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    15. Burdett, Ken & Coles, Melvyn, 2010. "Wage/tenure contracts with heterogeneous firms," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(4), pages 1408-1435, July.
    16. Elhanan Helpman & Oleg Itskhoki & Stephen Redding, 2010. "Inequality and Unemployment in a Global Economy," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(4), pages 1239-1283, July.
    17. Jesper Bagger & Fran?ois Fontaine & Fabien Postel-Vinay & Jean-Marc Robin, 2014. "Tenure, Experience, Human Capital, and Wages: A Tractable Equilibrium Search Model of Wage Dynamics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(6), pages 1551-1596, June.
    18. MacLeod, W. Bentley, 2011. "Great Expectations: Law, Employment Contracts, and Labor Market Performance," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 18, pages 1591-1696, Elsevier.
    19. Benjamin Lochner & Bastian Schulz, 2016. "Labor Market Sorting in Germany," CESifo Working Paper Series 6066, CESifo.
    20. Evan Starr & Justin Frake & Rajshree Agarwal, 2019. "Mobility Constraint Externalities," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(5), pages 961-980, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ucp:jlabec:v:28:y:2010:i:2:p:413-445. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JOLE .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.