Employer Recruitment and the Integration of Industrial Labor Markets 1870-1914

23 Pages Posted: 8 Mar 2000 Last revised: 24 Feb 2023

See all articles by Joshua L. Rosenbloom

Joshua L. Rosenbloom

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); Iowa State University - Department of Economics

Date Written: January 1994

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.

Suggested Citation

Rosenbloom, Joshua L., Employer Recruitment and the Integration of Industrial Labor Markets 1870-1914 (January 1994). NBER Working Paper No. h0053, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=190390

Joshua L. Rosenbloom (Contact Author)

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

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Iowa State University - Department of Economics ( email )

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United States

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