The American economic review, 2013-02, Vol.103 (1), p.107-144
2013
Details
- Autor(en) / Beteiligte
- Titel
- Coercive Contract Enforcement: Law and the Labor Market in Nineteenth Century Industrial Britain
- Ist Teil von
- The American economic review, 2013-02, Vol.103 (1), p.107-144
- Ort / Verlag
- Nashville: American Economic Association
- Erscheinungsjahr
- 2013
- Link zum Volltext
- Quelle
- EBSCOhost Business Source Ultimate
- Beschreibungen/Notizen
- British Master and Servant law made employee contract breach a criminal offense until 1875. We develop a contracting model generating equilibrium contract breach and prosecutions, then exploit exogenous changes in output prices to examine the effects of labor demand shocks on prosecutions. Positive shocks in the textile, iron, and coal industries increased prosecutions. Following the abolition of criminal sanctions, wages differentially rose in counties that had experienced more prosecutions, and wages responded more to labor demand shocks. Coercive contract enforcement was applied in industrial Britain; restricted mobility allowed workers to commit to risk-sharing contracts with lower, but less volatile, wages.
- Sprache
- Englisch
- Identifikatoren
- ISSN: 0002-8282eISSN: 1944-7981DOI: 10.1257/aer.103.1.107Titel-ID: cdi_proquest_miscellaneous_1317584997
- Format
- –
- Schlagworte
- 19th century, Breach of contract, Coal, Contracts, Criminal prosecution, Criminality, Demand shock, Demand shocks, Economic conditions, Economic models, Economic statistics, Economic theory, Economists, Employees, Employers, Employment, Employment at will, Enforcement, Equilibrium, European history, Fines & penalties, Forced labor, Historians, Industrialization, Labor demand, Labor economics, Labor law, Labor market, Labour market, Master and servant, Occupational mobility, Price shocks, Prosecutions, Sanctions, Studies, Textile industry, Unemployment, United Kingdom, Wages, Wages & salaries