TY - JOUR
T1 - Labor Market Effects of Workweek Restrictions
T2 - Evidence from the Great Depression
AU - Fishback, Price
AU - Vickers, Chris
AU - Ziebarth, Nicolas L.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© (2024), (American Economic Association). All Rights Reserved.
PY - 2024
Y1 - 2024
N2 - We study the effects of restrictions on the length of the workweek under the President’s Reemployment Agreement (PRA) of July 1933 and the National Industrial Recovery Act. We construct a model in which the equilibrium without such a workweek restriction has an inefficiently low level of employment. We find that employment rose by about 24 percent in the month following the imposition of the workweek restriction. Industries with longer workweeks pre-PRA experienced 9.4 percent faster growth in hourly earnings post-PRA, but this increase was not sufficient to prevent a relative fall in weekly earnings in these industries.
AB - We study the effects of restrictions on the length of the workweek under the President’s Reemployment Agreement (PRA) of July 1933 and the National Industrial Recovery Act. We construct a model in which the equilibrium without such a workweek restriction has an inefficiently low level of employment. We find that employment rose by about 24 percent in the month following the imposition of the workweek restriction. Industries with longer workweeks pre-PRA experienced 9.4 percent faster growth in hourly earnings post-PRA, but this increase was not sufficient to prevent a relative fall in weekly earnings in these industries.
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U2 - 10.1257/mac.20220188
DO - 10.1257/mac.20220188
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:105001357596
SN - 1945-7707
VL - 16
SP - 77
EP - 113
JO - American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics
JF - American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics
IS - 4
ER -