Migration and business cycles

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1736236210

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-111544

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Jerome, Harry

Title:: Migration and business cycles

Place of publication:: New York

Publisher:: National Bureau of Economic Research

Year of publication:: 1926

Scope:: 256 S.

Digitisation:: 2020

Collection:: Economics Books

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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter I. The problem

Collection:: Economics Books

THE PROBLEM : subject adequately it would be necessary to determine the extent to which migration has dominated the direction and the amount of industrial growth in the United States—that is, the extent to which the major changes in our industrial development and occupational distribution have been closely related to changes in the volume, type, or geographical distribution of immigration and emigration. Even more significant would be an inquiry into the readjustments which may in the future be set in motion by modifications in the volume or type of migration. Will a decrease in the annual acces- sion of laborers from abroad set in motion significant readjustments in industrial tendencies? Will the vacuum created by restricting immigration stimulate internal migration of the negro, intensify the country-to-city movement, or lead to a better utilization of the available man-power through improvements in methods of or- ganization and administration or through more effective labor- saving devices? Or, if none of the above developments is adequate to enable industries to maintain the customary rate of progress, must we see a check to industrial advancement? All these are fas- cinating questions worthy of intensive and sustained research, and it is hoped that we may in subsequent reports give attention to these phases of the problem. The present study is made from what we have designated as the short-time point of view. Migration and Business Cycles. The queries we have just suggested are concerned chiefly with long-run tendencies. Equally significant is the relation of migration to those fluctuations in industrial activity which mark the various stages in the business cycle or accompany the round of the seasons. In recent years the attention of students of economic affairs has been focused upon the phenomena of the business cycle, with its alternating periods of prosperity and depression, and the accom- panying pendulum swing of employment from an apparent shortage of labor to severe unemployment or a relative surplus of labor. It is in this undulation of employment conditions that the most obvious and tangible instances of labor surplus and labor shortage arise. Demand for labor, like demand for any commodity, means demand for a given quantity at a given price. Supply means supply at a given price. Labor shortage and labor surplus, consequently, are relative terms, to be interpreted in terms of relation to demand at the prevailing wages. Obviously, however, if due allowance is made for 25

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