Employer Recruitment and the Integration of Industrial Labor Markets 1870-1914 / Joshua L. Rosenbloom.

By:

Rosenbloom, Joshua L

Contributor(s):

National Bureau of Economic Research

Material type: Text

TextSeries: Historical Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) ; no. h0053.Publication details: Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 1994.Description: 1 online resource: illustrations (black and white)Subject(s):

N31 - U.S. • Canada: Pre-1913

Online resources:

Available additional physical forms:

Hardcopy version available to institutional subscribers

Abstract: The substantial shifts in the sectoral and geographic location of economic activity that took place in the late nineteenth-century United States required the reallocation of large quantities of labor. This paper examines the response of labor market institutions to the challenges of unbalanced growth. Based on previously unexploited descriptive evidence from the reports of the Immigration Commission it argues that employer recruitment was crucial to the adjustment of labor markets to shifting patterns of supply and demand. Because individual employers could capture only a fraction of the benefits of recruitment, however, investment in this activity may have been less than would have been socially optimal, suggesting a possible explanation for the persistence of large geographic wage differentials.

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Item type	Home library	Collection	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode	Item holds
Working Paper	Biblioteca Digital	Colección NBER	nber h0053 (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Not For Loan

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January 1994.

The substantial shifts in the sectoral and geographic location of economic activity that took place in the late nineteenth-century United States required the reallocation of large quantities of labor. This paper examines the response of labor market institutions to the challenges of unbalanced growth. Based on previously unexploited descriptive evidence from the reports of the Immigration Commission it argues that employer recruitment was crucial to the adjustment of labor markets to shifting patterns of supply and demand. Because individual employers could capture only a fraction of the benefits of recruitment, however, investment in this activity may have been less than would have been socially optimal, suggesting a possible explanation for the persistence of large geographic wage differentials.