Abstract
When labor markets are subject to large demand or supply shocks, as was the case in the late nineteenth-century United States, geographic wage differentials may not be an accurate index of market integration. This article uses a conceptually more appealing measure—the elasticity of local labor supply—to compare the integration of urban labor markets for a variety of occupations in 1890. According to this measure, markets, for unskilled labor and skilled metal-working trades appear relatively well integrated in comparison to those for the skilled building trades.

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