Coercive Contract Enforcement: Law and the Labor Market in 19th Century Industrial Britain / Suresh Naidu, Noam Yuchtman.

By:

Naidu, Suresh

Contributor(s):

Material type: Text

TextSeries: Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) ; no. w17051.Publication details: Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2011.Description: 1 online resource: illustrations (black and white)Subject(s):

Online resources:

Available additional physical forms:

Hardcopy version available to institutional subscribers

Abstract: British Master and Servant law made employee contract breach a criminal offense until 1875. We develop a contracting model generating equilibrium contract breach and prosecutions, then exploit exogenous changes in output prices to examine the effects of labor demand shocks on prosecutions. Positive shocks in the textile, iron, and coal industries increased prosecutions. Following the abolition of criminal sanctions, wages differentially rose in counties that had experienced more prosecutions, and wages responded more to labor demand shocks. Coercive contract enforcement was applied in industrial Britain; restricted mobility allowed workers to commit to risk-sharing contracts with lower, but less volatile, wages.

Tags from this library: No tags from this library for this title. Log in to add tags.

Average rating: 0.0 (0 votes)

Holdings
Item type	Home library	Collection	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode	Item holds
Working Paper	Biblioteca Digital	Colección NBER	nber w17051 (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Not For Loan

Total holds: 0

May 2011.

British Master and Servant law made employee contract breach a criminal offense until 1875. We develop a contracting model generating equilibrium contract breach and prosecutions, then exploit exogenous changes in output prices to examine the effects of labor demand shocks on prosecutions. Positive shocks in the textile, iron, and coal industries increased prosecutions. Following the abolition of criminal sanctions, wages differentially rose in counties that had experienced more prosecutions, and wages responded more to labor demand shocks. Coercive contract enforcement was applied in industrial Britain; restricted mobility allowed workers to commit to risk-sharing contracts with lower, but less volatile, wages.