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Project Citation: 

Naidu, Suresh, and Yuchtman, Noam. Replication data for: Coercive Contract Enforcement: Law and the Labor Market in Nineteenth Century Industrial Britain. Nashville, TN: American Economic Association [publisher], 2013. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2019-10-11. https://doi.org/10.3886/E112585V1

Project Description

Summary:  View help for Summary 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. (JEL J31, J41, K12, K31, N33, N43)

Scope of Project

JEL Classification:  View help for JEL Classification
      J31 Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
      J41 Labor Contracts
      K12 Contract Law
      K31 Labor Law
      N33 Economic History: Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy: Europe: Pre-1913
      N43 Economic History: Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation: Europe: Pre-1913


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