Quantity and price adjustments in Kansas labor markets, 1899
This thesis is an attempt to evaluate and correct the sanguine view of the U.S. labor market prior to the twentieth century as a 'spot' market. The spot-market characterization permits economists to produce clean predictions of market behavior, based on one dimension of market adjustments, i.e. wage movements. However, the conventional analysis based on the assumption of the spot labor market poses difficulties in characterizing the functioning of labor markets in the late nineteenth century. This thesis directs its attention to the matter of quantity adjustment of the labor market, with a particular focus on the nature and structure of (un)employment at the turn of the century. Although its major part is devoted to exploring the process of quantity adjustment, this study is also concerned with its ultimate impact on the process of price adjustment. The thesis is organized around a survey of 1058 wage earners in Kansas conducted by the state Bureau of Labor and Industry which was published in its Fifteenth Annual Report for 1899.
University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
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University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign