This paper estimates the impact of recruitment restrictions on job-to-job transitions and wages in the post-bellum U.S. South. I estimate the effects of criminal fines charged for “enticement" (offers made to workers already under contract) on sharecropper mobility, tenancy choice, and agricultural wages. I find that a $13 (10%) increase in the fine charged for enticement lowered the probability of a move by Black sharecroppers by 12%, lowered daily wages by 1 cent (.1%), and lowered the returns to experience for Blacks by 0.6% per year. These results are consistent with an on-the-job search model, where the enticement fine raises the cost of offering a job to employed workers.
Focus areas: Economic effects of political transitions, economic history of slavery and labor institutions, international migration, economic applications of natural language processing
Suresh Naidu teaches economics, political economy and development.
Naidu previously served as a Harvard Academy Junior Scholar at Harvard University, and as an instructor in economics and political economy at the University of California, Berkeley.
Naidu holds a BMath from University of Waterloo, an MA in economics from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and a PhD in economics from the University of California, Berkeley.
Publications:
- “Recruitment Restrictions and Labor Markets: Evidence from the Post-Bellum U.S. South,” Journal of Labor Economics.
- “Intergenerational Wealth Transmission and the Dynamics of Inequality in Small-Scale Societies” with Monique Borgerhoff Mulder, Samuel Bowles, Tom Hertz, Adrian Bell, Jan Beise, Greg Clark, Ila Fazzio, Michael Gurven, Kim , Paul L. Hooper, William Irons, Hillard Kaplan, Donna Leonetti, Bobbi Low, Frank Marlowe, Richard McElreath, Suresh Naidu, David Nolin, Patrizio Piraino, Rob Quinlan, Eric Schniter, Rebecca Sear, Mary Shenk, Eric Alden Smith, Christopher von Rueden, and Polly Wiessner. Science Vol. 326. No. 5953 (October 30, 2009.) pp 682-688.
- “Occupational Choices: The Economic Determinants of Land Invasions” with Danny Hidalgo, Simeon Nichter, and Neal Richardson, Review of Economics and Statistics.
- “The Economic Impacts of a Citywide Minimum Wage” with Arin Dube and Michael Reich. Industrial and Labor Relations Review Vol. 60, No. 4 (July 2007), pp. 522-543.