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Full-Text Articles in Labor Economics
Labor-Market Regimes In U.S. Economic History, Joshua L. Rosenbloom, William A. Sundstrom
Labor-Market Regimes In U.S. Economic History, Joshua L. Rosenbloom, William A. Sundstrom
Joshua L. Rosenbloom
In much economic analysis it is a convenient fiction to suppose that changes over time in wages and employment are determined by shifts in supply or demand within a more or less competitive market framework Indeed, this framework has been effectively deployed to understand many episodes in American economic history. We argue here, however, that by minimizing the role of labor-market institutions such an approach is incomplete. Drawing on the history of American labor markets over two centuries, we argue that institutions—by which we mean both formal and informal rules that constrain the choices of economic agents—have played a significant …
Reexamining The Distribution Of Wealth In 1870, Joshua L. Rosenbloom, Gregory W. Stutes
Reexamining The Distribution Of Wealth In 1870, Joshua L. Rosenbloom, Gregory W. Stutes
Joshua L. Rosenbloom
This paper uses data on real and personal property ownership collected in the 1870 Federal Census to explore factors influencing individual wealth accumulation and the aggregate distribution of wealth in the United States near the middle of the nineteenth century. Previous analyses of these data have relied on relatively small samples, or focused on population subgroups. By using the much larger sample available in the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) we are able to disaggregate the data much more finely than has previously been possible allowing us to explore differences in inequality across space and between different population groups. …
Conjectural Estimates Of Economic Growth In The Lower South, 1720 To 1800, Peter C. Mancall, Joshua L. Rosenbloom, Thomas Weiss
Conjectural Estimates Of Economic Growth In The Lower South, 1720 To 1800, Peter C. Mancall, Joshua L. Rosenbloom, Thomas Weiss
Joshua L. Rosenbloom
This paper describes the first step in a larger project to build up regional estimates of economic growth before 1800 in the parts of North America that became the United States. In it we employ the method of conjectural estimation to develop new estimates of the rate of economic growth in the Lower South (modern day North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee) from 1720 to 1800 for both colonists and the Native American population of the region. Contrary to the widely held view that GDP per capita grew at a rate of 0.3 to 0.6 percent per year during …
The Challenges Of Economic Maturity: New England, 1880-1940, Joshua L. Rosenbloom
The Challenges Of Economic Maturity: New England, 1880-1940, Joshua L. Rosenbloom
Joshua L. Rosenbloom
This paper provides an account of the complex changes taking place within New England in the years from 1880 to 1940. After 1880, technological changes and market shifts undermined the sources of comparative advantage that had promoted the concentration of textile and footwear production within the region and propelled regional economic growth. Despite the decline of these industries after 1880, New England's history after 1880 can hardly be characterized as one of economic decline. Regional economic growth did slow in the wake of these events, but the impact of this slowdown on living standards was moderated, by market driven adjustments …
Employer Recruitment And The Integration Of Industrial Labor Markets, 1870-1914, Joshua L. Rosenbloom
Employer Recruitment And The Integration Of Industrial Labor Markets, 1870-1914, Joshua L. Rosenbloom
Joshua L. Rosenbloom
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 …