Full Citation

Title: Labor Mobility and Economic Development in the Post-Bellum U.S. South

Citation Type: Miscellaneous

Publication Year: 2008

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Abstract: Across the NewWorld, the abolition of slavery was followed by a battery of laws restrictingthe labor market mobility of the newly emancipated. This paper models and estimates theimpact of labor mobility restricting laws on African-Americans in the post-bellum U.S. South.Laws restricting job-to-job transitions increased the fraction of African-Americans relative towhites living in the rural sector and working in agriculture across the South. Increases inthe nes charged employers for recruiting employed workers increased the duration of blacklabor contracts in a sample of Arkansas agricultural workers. Black agricultural workers wholived longer under labor control laws had a lower return to experience. These fi ndings are consistent with a two-sector model of on-the-job search with mobility costs.

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Authors: Naidu, Suresh

Publisher: University of California, Berkeley

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Race and Ethnicity

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