The impact of New Deal expenditures on mobility during the Great Depression

Abstract

Using county-level data on federal New Deal expenditures on public works and relief and Agricultural Adjustment Administration payments to farmers, this paper empirically examines the New Deals impact on inter-county migration from 1930 to 1940. We construct a net-migration measure for each county as the difference between the Censuss reported population change from 1930 to 1940 and the natural increase in population (births minus infant deaths minus non-infant deaths) over the same period. Our empirical approach accounts for both the simultaneity between New Deal allocations and migration and the geographic spillovers that likely resulted when economic activity in one county may have affected the migration decisions of people in neighboring counties. We find that greater spending on relief and public works was associated with significant migration into counties where such money was allocated. The introduction of our modern farm programs under the aegis of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration appears to have contributed to a net out-migration that sped the transition of people out of farming.

What we learned from the Dust Bowl: lessons in science, policy, and adaptation

“…Gutmann et al (2005; Gutmann and Field 2010; Deane and Gutmann 2003) have used Dust Bowl era population movements in developing explanations of the relationship between environment and American population trends more broadly, in giving context to the population displacements and migration that followed in the wake of 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, and as an inspiration for studying the relationship between dust storms and population change in later decades on the Great Plains. Fishback et al (2006) combined newly available economic datasets with census data to assess the effects of New Deal policies on migration, finding that areas of the US where larger amounts of money were spent on public works projects, relief, and agricultural assistance, were less likely to lose out-migrants and more likely to attract migrants from elsewhere. These findings echo qualitative evidence found by McLeman et al (2008) in eastern Oklahoma, which suggested that out-migration rates there would have been much higher if not for government assistance.…”

Migration in the 1930s: Beyond the Dust Bowl

“…Our focus is mostly on processes that are important for the less urbanized parts of the United States, where natural phenomena, such as precipitation and temperature, may have had a strong effect, either acting on their own or acting through agriculture, although we also include measures related to employment by industry and unemployment, which we hypothesize play a role in determining migration even in urban areas. While other researchers have examined the role of New Deal support programs in explaining migration (Fishback, Horrace et al 2006), our preliminary analysis suggested that they were less important than other factors, and they are not included in our statistical models.…”

“…In these approaches, a person’s likelihood of migrating is a function of his or her individual characteristics but also of the characteristics of their places of origin and destination, including the distribution of income, land, and human capital; the organization of agriculture and industry; public policy; and cultural frameworks, reflected in local ethnic, religious and racialconditions(Massey, Arango et al 1993, Fishback, Horrace et al 2006). Migration is also shaped by the structure of social networks.…”

“…With this wealth of data, research about migration in the 1930s has explored many questions but left even more unanswered (Lively and Taeuber 1939, U.S. Bureau of the Census 1946, Bogue and Hagood 1953, Bogue, Shryock et al 1957, Tolnay, White et al 2005, White 2005, White, Crowder et al 2005, Fishback, Horrace et al 2006, McLeman and Smit 2006, Boustan, Fishback et al 2010, Boustan, Kahn et al 2012, Hornbeck 2012, Long and Siu 2013, McLeman 2013). …”

Why Has Regional Convergence in the U.S. Stopped?

“…Net migration under this method is equal to NetMig Survive t,t+10 = P op s t+10 −P op s t+10 . All data come from Ferrie (2003), except birth-death method estimates from 1930-1940 are from Fishback et al (2006).…”