Applied Microeconomics and Trade Seminar Series presents: Giovanni Peri

Host: Gueyon Kim

ABSTRACT:  In the early 1940s, Japanese American farmers and farm workers represented an important part of agriculture-specific human capital in the United States. In 1942 all those living in the “exclusion zone” along the WestCoastwereforcefully relocated to internment camps and most of them never returned to farming. Using county-level panel data from historical agricultural censuses and a triple-difference (DDD) estimation approach we find that, by 1960, counties in the exclusion zone experienced 12% lower cumulative growth in farm value for each percentage point loss of their 1940 share of Japanese farm workers, relative to counties outside the exclusion zone. Farm revenues, farm productivity, adoption of high-value crops, mechanization, and farm wages were also correspondingly lower. Taken together, these findings are consistent with Japanese farmers representing hard-to-replace human capital, rather than replaceable labor, in US agriculture.