Corvallis : Agricultural Experiment Station, Oregon State University
Abstract
The issues of farm labor unionization, with its accompanying wage demands, and of raising the agricultural wage rate through legislative action, continue to receive increasing nationwide attention. However, much of the policy for dealing with this sector was formulated at a time when the wage-employment response was significantly different than it is today. There is evidence that one state, Oregon, has shifted from an inelastic hired farm labor market to an elastic market, and that the nationwide market is undergoing a similar shift at the present time. This bulletin uses traditional time-series hired farm labor models to examine the U.S. market and the Oregon market. Various estimation problems and a hypothesis about the future behavior of elasticity in this sector are discussed.Published October 1967. Facts and recommendations in this publication may no longer be valid. Please look for up-to-date information in the OSU Extension Catalog: http://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalo
