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Title: Time to Accumulate: The Great Migration and the Rise of the American South

Citation Type: Miscellaneous

Publication Year: 2024

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Abstract: The idea that labor scarcity can induce economic development has been long hypothesized (Hicks, 1932; Habakkuk, 1962), but the evidence is scarce, especially on non-agricultural development. In this paper, I assess the role of the Second Great Migration (1940-1970) on the subsequent structural change in the American South between 1970 and 2010. Empirical results using shift-share instruments show that out-migration incentivized physical capital investment and capital-augmenting technical change, increasing capital per worker and output in both agriculture and manufacturing at least until 2010. Labor reallocated from agriculture to non-agriculture. I then develop and calibrate a dynamic spatial equilibrium model that allows substitution between factors of production, factor-biased technical change, and the Heckscher-Ohlin force in trade. The contribution analyses using the model suggest that labor-capital substitution played a key role in economic adjustments to the South-to-North migration.

Url: https://dongkyu91.github.io/jmp/Dongkyu_Yang_JMP.pdf

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Authors: Yang, Dongkyu

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Data Collections: IPUMS USA, IPUMS USA - Ancestry Full Count Data

Topics: Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Migration and Immigration, Population Mobility and Spatial Demography

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