Papers Analyzing Issues of Race, Gender and Immigration

One of the publications I am most proud of is an early piece on the competition between white women and Chinese men for work in the post-Gold Rush era in Northern California. Neoclassical theory posits that discriminatory tastes are external to the market, and at least in the case of employers, these tastes will be constrained or eliminated by the competition between employers. In a case study of the attitudes and actions of white employers in the era between 1850 and 1882, Martin Brown and I find evidence to support standard neoclassical assertions, but we also find that competitive pressures stimulated racial discrimination. So what the market took away on the one hand, it put back on the other.

Also included in this category of publications is another early study of gender based wage differentials in Pennsylvania manufacturing.

Competition, Racism, and Hiring Practices among California Manufacturers, 1860-1882, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Vol. 40, No. 1 (Oct., 1986), pp. 61-74

Gender-Based Wage Differentials in Pennsylvania and New Jersey Manufacturing, 1900-1950, The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 42, No. 1, The Tasks of Economic History (Mar., 1982), pp. 181-186