TY - JOUR
T1 - Labor Supply and Directed Technical Change
T2 - Evidence from the Termination of the Bracero Program in 1964
AU - San, Shmuel
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics. All Rights Reserved.
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - This paper studies the impact of labor supply on the creation of new technology, exploiting a large exogenous shock to the US agricultural labor supply caused by the termination of the Bracero agreements between the US and Mexico at the end of 1964. Using a text-search algorithm allocating patents to crops, I show a negative labor-supply shock induced a sharp increase in innovation in technologies related to more affected crops. The effect is stronger for technology related to labor-intensive production tasks. Farm-value dynamics indicate that, despite the positive technology reaction, the policy change was undesirable for farm owners.
AB - This paper studies the impact of labor supply on the creation of new technology, exploiting a large exogenous shock to the US agricultural labor supply caused by the termination of the Bracero agreements between the US and Mexico at the end of 1964. Using a text-search algorithm allocating patents to crops, I show a negative labor-supply shock induced a sharp increase in innovation in technologies related to more affected crops. The effect is stronger for technology related to labor-intensive production tasks. Farm-value dynamics indicate that, despite the positive technology reaction, the policy change was undesirable for farm owners.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85163314089&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1257/app.20200664
DO - 10.1257/app.20200664
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AN - SCOPUS:85163314089
SN - 1945-7782
VL - 15
SP - 136
EP - 163
JO - American Economic Journal: Applied Economics
JF - American Economic Journal: Applied Economics
IS - 1
ER -
