OCCUPATIONAL DIFFERENCES IN THE DISPERSION OF WAGES AND WORKING HOURS - LABOR-MARKET INTEGRATION IN THE UNITED-STATES, 1890-1903

By the end of the 19th century, improvements in transportation and communication had laid the technological foundation for the spatial integration of American labor markets. The wages and hours of American workers, however, continued to vary substantially by location. Analyzing the joint variation of real wages and hours for 10 occupations, we show that the degree of labor-market integration differed considerably by occupation. These occupational differences were probably not the consequence of differences in locational amenities or the volatility of labor demand; they more likely reflected differences in labor-market institutions and product-market integration. © 1993 Academic Press, Inc.