When the Levee Breaks: Black Migration and Economic Development in the American South

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Hornbeck, Richard; Naidu, Suresh
• 署名单位: Harvard University
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.104.3.963
• 发表日期: 2014
• 页码: 963-990
• 关键词: technological-change; COTTON HARVEST; LABOR; agriculture; GROWTH; IMPACT; POLICY; US; mechanization; COMPETITION

摘要

In the American South, postbellum economic development may have been restricted in part by white landowners' access to low-wage black labor. This paper examines the impact of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 on black out-migration and subsequent agricultural development. Flooded counties experienced an immediate and persistent out-migration of black population. Over time, landowners in flooded counties modernized agricultural production and increased its capital intensity relative to landowners in nearby similar non-flooded counties. Landowners resisted black out-migration, however, benefiting from the status quo system of labor-intensive agricultural production.