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The Marginal Effect of New Deal Relief Work on County-Level Unemployment Statistics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Robert K. Fleck
Robert K. Fleck
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor, Department of Agricultural Economics and Economics, Montana State Universit Bozeman, MT 59717.
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Abstract

This article uses 1937 and 1940 Census data to estimate the effect that hiring an additional relief worker in a county had on unemployment statistics for that county. The fundamental estimation problem arises because one cannot easily control for economic conditions that influenced both the number of individuals holding relief jobs and the number counted as jobless.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 59 , Issue 3 , September 1999 , pp. 659 - 687
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1999

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