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Operations of Unfettered Labor Markets: Exit and Voice in American Labor Markets at the Turn of the Century
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This article surveys the economic history literature to determine how well labor markets operated in the early 1900s, examining the mobility of workers, the integration of geographically dispersed labor markets, and a case study of the extent of employer monopsony.Abstract:
The American economy at the turn of the century offers an excellent opportunity to study the functioning of relatively unregulated labor markets. The essay surveys the economic history literature to determine how well labor markets operated in the early 1900s. After examining the mobility of workers, the integration of geographically dispersed labor markets, and a case study of the extent of employer monopsony, we examine the extent to which workers received compensating differentials for workplace disamenities and the extent to which competition among employers reduced discrimination. During this period institutions like the company town, company union, and share cropping developed. These institutions are re-examined to determine the extent to which they were exploitative or helped resolve problems with transactions costs. Finally, reformers pushed for legislation during the progressive era to correct perceived market failures. We examine the impact of progressive legislation and discuss the political economy of its passage.read more
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Boarding a Sinking Ship? An Investigation of Job Applications to Distressed Firms
TL;DR: This paper examined the impact of corporate distress on firms' ability to attract job applicants and found that job seekers accurately perceive firms' financial condition, as measured by companies' credit default swap prices and accounting data, and that an increase in an employer's distress results in fewer and lower quality applicants.
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Specialization and Regulation: The Rise of Professionals and the Emergence of Occupational Licensing Regulation
Marc T. Law,Sukkoo Kim +1 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the origins and effects of occupational licensing regulation in late nineteenth and early early twentieth century America and examine the impact of medical licensing laws on entry into the medical profession, physician earnings, mortality rates, and the incidence of medical malpractice.
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Institutional economics and the minimum wage: broadening the theoretical and policy debate
TL;DR: In this article, the authors use institutional theory to develop four theoretical rationales for minimum wage legislation: setting a floor on wages to offset imperfect competition and inequality of bargaining power; promote macroeconomic stabilization and full employment; contribute to long-term efficiency and growth; and incorporate labor market externalities and social costs of labor.
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Looking for Work, Searching for Workers: American Labor Markets during Industrialization
TL;DR: The authors describes how employers and job-seekers responded to these imbalances to create networks of labor market communication and assistance capable of mobilizing the massive redistribution of population that was essential to maintain the rapid pace of the nation's economic growth between the Civil War and World War I.
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Regulatory Races: The Effects of Jurisdictional Competition on Regulatory Standards
TL;DR: This paper surveys the literature on regulatory arbitrage in four settings: labor regulation, environmental protection, corporate governance, and banking and finance, and finds that regulatory convergence as occurs is more often the result of deliberate harmonization or imitation.
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Soft Coal, Hard Choices: The Economic Welfare of Bituminous Coal Miners, 1890-1930
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Coal Towns: Life, Work, and Culture in Company Towns of Southern Appalachia, 1880-1960
Abstract: Using oral histories, company records, and census data, Crandall A. Shifflett paints a vivid portrait of miners and their families in southern Appalachian coal towns from the late nineteenth into the mid-twentieth century. He finds that, compared to their earlier lives on subsistence farms, coal-town life was not all bad. Shifflett examines how this view, quite common among the oral histories of these working families, has been obscured by the middle-class biases of government studies and the Edenic myth of preindustrial Appalachia propagated by some historians. From their own point of view, mining families left behind a life of hard labor and drafty weatherboard homes. With little time for such celebrated arts as tale-telling and quilting, preindustrial mountain people strung more beans than dulcimers. In addition, the rural population was growing, and farmland was becoming scarce. What the families recall about the coal towns contradicts the popular image of mining life. Most miners did not owe their souls to the company store, and most mining companies were not unusually harsh taskmasters. Former miners and their families remember such company benefits as indoor plumbing, regular income, and leisure activities. They also recall the United Mine Workers of America as bringing not only pay raises and health benefits but work stoppages and violent confrontations. Far from being mere victims of historical forces, miners and their families shaped their own destiny by forging a new working-class culture out of the adaptation of their rural values to the demands of industrial life. This new culture had many continuities with the older one. Out of the closely knit social ties they brought from farming communities, mining families created their own safety net for times of economic downturn. Shifflett recognizes the dangers and hardships of coal-town life but also shows the resilience of Appalachian people in adapting their culture to a new environment. Crandall A. Shifflett is an associate professor of history at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.