1. Consider the invention and adoption of the mechanical tomato harvester on the

Question

1. Consider the invention and adoption of the mechanical tomato harvester on the farm labor market.

a. Illustrate the expected impact of the invention of the mechanical tomato harvester on the farm labor equilibrium when farmers believed that the end of the Bracero Program would reduce the number of immigrant workers to near zero.

b. Illustrate the actual impact of the mechanical tomato harvester on the farm labor market, given that illegal immigrants rapidly replaced Braceros in the farm labor market.

Explanation / Answer

(a) For short period of time,invention of new machine reduces the demand of labour but Development of any machine/ invention or improvement in technology/Innovation does not mean that it will reduce the labour force. With the adoption of new technology,in long run, increase the production and thus more labour is required to handle the production. The labour force is only transferred from unskilled labour to skilled labour.

With the end of Bracero program in 1964, initially the supply of tomato harvesting labour was reduced. But due to invention of Mechanical tomato harvester, the cost of labour reduced (see the Figure 1, study on california http://www.choicesmagazine.org/choices-magazine/theme-articles/immigration-and-agriculture/the-status-of-labor-saving-mechanization-in-us-fruit-and-vegetable-harvesting )

(b) With the adoption of mechanical tomato harvester, productivity of the labour increases and thus the production of tomato in the market increases but the demand of unskilled labour reduced while the demand of skilled labour increased. Thus the demand for labour in the market remains same as the previous and the production increases. The cost of labour also reduced as the productivity of the labour increases.The gap arises in the demand and supply of labour due to the end of Bracero Program is reduced by the invention of mechnical harvester

Related Questions

Navigate

• Browse (All)
• Browse 1
• Subjects

Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.