IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/socarx/nt6kg.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Time to Accumulate: The Great Migration and the Rise of the American South

Author

Listed:
  • Yang, Dongkyu

Abstract

The idea that labor scarcity can induce economic development has long been hypothesized (Hicks, 1932; Habakkuk, 1962), but the evidence remains limited. This paper examines how the Second Great Migration (1940–1970) spurred structural change in the American South between 1970 and 2010. Empirical results using shift-share instruments show that out-migration incentivized capital investment and capital-augmenting technical change, increasing capital per worker and output in both agriculture and manufacturing, at least until 2010. Labor was reallocated from agriculture to non-agriculture. I then develop a dynamic spatial equilibrium model that allows for substitution between factors of production, factor-biased technical change, and factor abundance-based trade to characterize this process. The quantitative analysis indicates that labor-capital substitution played a major role in adjustments to South-to-North migration.

Suggested Citation

  • Yang, Dongkyu, 2024. "Time to Accumulate: The Great Migration and the Rise of the American South," SocArXiv nt6kg, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:nt6kg
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/nt6kg
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://osf.io/download/672387fce34e65ff9e0876ac/
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31219/osf.io/nt6kg?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fabian Eckert & Andrés Gvirtz & Jack Liang & Michael Peters, 2020. "A Method to Construct Geographical Crosswalks with an Application to US Counties since 1790," NBER Working Papers 26770, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Michael A. Clemens & Ethan G. Lewis & Hannah M. Postel, 2018. "Immigration Restrictions as Active Labor Market Policy: Evidence from the Mexican Bracero Exclusion," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(6), pages 1468-1487, June.
    3. Leah Platt Boustan, 2016. "Introduction to "Competition in the Promised Land: Black Migrants in Northern Cities and Labor Markets"," NBER Chapters, in: Competition in the Promised Land: Black Migrants in Northern Cities and Labor Markets, pages 1-13, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Jung, Yeonha, 2020. "The long reach of cotton in the US South: Tenant farming, mechanization, and low-skill manufacturing," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    5. Leah Platt Boustan, 2016. "Competition in the Promised Land: Black Migrants in Northern Cities and Labor Markets," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number bous-2.
    6. Hulten, Charles R. & Wykoff, Frank C., 1981. "The estimation of economic depreciation using vintage asset prices : An application of the Box-Cox power transformation," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 367-396, April.
    7. Ellora Derenoncourt, 2022. "Can You Move to Opportunity? Evidence from the Great Migration," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(2), pages 369-408, February.
    8. Warren C. Whatley, 1985. "A History of Mechanization in the Cotton South: The Institutional Hypothesis," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 100(4), pages 1191-1215.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Vu, Cecilia & Arcaya, Mariana C. & Kawachi, Ichiro & Williams, David R., 2023. "Moving to opportunity? Low birth weight outcomes among Southern-born Black mothers during the Great Migration," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 328(C).
    2. Calderon, Alvaro & Fouka, Vasiliki & Tabellini, Marco, 2021. "Racial Diversity and Racial Policy Preferences: The Great Migration and Civil Rights," IZA Discussion Papers 14488, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Xie, Bin, 2017. "The Effects of Immigration Quotas on Wages, the Great Black Migration, and Industrial Development," IZA Discussion Papers 11214, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Alvaro Calderon & Vasiliki Fouka & Marco Tabellini, 2021. "Racial Diversity and Racial Policy Preferences: The Great Migration and Civil Rights," RF Berlin - CReAM Discussion Paper Series 2133, Rockwool Foundation Berlin (RF Berlin) - Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM).
    5. Tabellini, Marco & Calderon, Alvaro & Fouka, Vasiliki, 2021. "Racial Diversity and Racial Policy Preferences: The Great Migration and Civil Rights," CEPR Discussion Papers 14318, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Yacine Boujija & Marie Connolly & Xavier St-Denis, 2023. "Mobilité géographique et transmission intergénérationnelle du revenu au Québec," CIRANO Project Reports 2023rp-11, CIRANO.
    7. Calderon, Alvaro & Fouka, Vasiliki & Tabellini, Marco, 2021. "Racial Diversity, Electoral Preferences, and the Supply of Policy: The Great Migration and Civil Rights," IZA Discussion Papers 14312, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Daepp, Madeleine I.G. & Bunten, Devin Michelle & Hsu, Joanne W., 2023. "The Effect of Racial Composition on Neighborhood Housing Prices: Evidence from Hurricane Katrina-Induced Migration," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    9. Katharina Werner & Ahmed Skali, 2023. "Violent Conflict and Parochial Trust: Lab-in-the-Field and Survey Evidence," HiCN Working Papers 404, Households in Conflict Network.
    10. Tabellini, Marco, 2020. "Racial Heterogeneity and Local Government Finances: Evidence from the Great Migration," CEPR Discussion Papers 14319, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Prottoy A. Akbar & Sijie Li & Allison Shertzer & Randall P. Walsh, 2019. "Racial Segregation in Housing Markets and the Erosion of Black Wealth," NBER Working Papers 25805, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. David Card & Ciprian Domnisoru & Lowell Taylor, 2022. "The Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital: Evidence from the Golden Age of Upward Mobility," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 40(S1), pages 39-95.
    13. Alex W. Bartik & Evan Mast, 2021. "Black Suburbanization: Causes and Consequences of a Transformation of American Cities," Upjohn Working Papers 21-355, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    14. Vasiliki Fouka & Soumyajit Mazumder & Marco Tabellini, 2018. "From Immigrants to Americans: Race and Assimilation during the Great Migration," Harvard Business School Working Papers 19-018, Harvard Business School, revised Jun 2019.
    15. Marianne H Wanamaker, 2017. "150 Years of Economic Progress for African American Men: Measuring Outcomes and Sizing Up Roadblocks," Economic History of Developing Regions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(3), pages 211-220, September.
    16. William J. Collins & Marianne H. Wanamaker, 2017. "African American Intergenerational Economic Mobility Since 1880," NBER Working Papers 23395, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Mccoy, Daire & Kotsch, Raphaela A., 2021. "Quantifying the distributional impact of energy efficiency measures," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 107933, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    18. Eric Chyn & Lawrence F. Katz, 2021. "Neighborhoods Matter: Assessing the Evidence for Place Effects," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 35(4), pages 197-222, Fall.
    19. Giuliano, Paola & Tabellini, Marco, 2020. "The Seeds of Ideology: Historical Immigration and Political Preferences in the United States," CEPR Discussion Papers 14784, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    20. J. Trent Alexander & Christine Leibbrand & Catherine Massey & Stewart Tolnay, 2017. "Second-Generation Outcomes of the Great Migration," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(6), pages 2249-2271, December.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:nt6kg. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://arabixiv.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.