We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
On Internalizing Demographic Externalities: The Case of Preindustrial England.
- Abstract
The article describes the system of legal barriers to labor mobility in pre-industrial England. Free circulation of labor in response to differences in economic opportunity tends to exert a strong influence toward equalizing wage levels. The freedom to change occupations and to resettle militates against persistent wide differences in earnings among persons of similar skills. Yet, historically, free mobility of labor has been the exception rather than the rule. Barriers to movement of labor across international frontiers constitute only the most conspicuous example of controls and institutional arrangements that interfere with full free movement of labor in the contemporary world. Economist Adam Smith's discussion focuses on the legal arrangements characterizing the Poor Laws rather than their actual workings. Nevertheless, his description is strongly suggestive of the important functions of a system in which "the necessity of providing for their own poor was indispensably imposed upon every parish," with the term "poor" embracing all members of the non-propertied classes.
- Publication
Population & Development Review, 1978, Vol 4, Issue 1, p145
- ISSN
0098-7921
- Publication type
Academic Journal
- DOI
10.2307/1972151