San, Shmuel  <br/><br/>
Labor supply and directed technical change: Evidence from the termination of the Bracero program in 1964 

 - American Economic Journal: Applied Economics   
 - 15(1), Jan, 2023: p.136-163 
<br/><br/> This paper studies the impact of labor supply on the creation of new technology, exploiting a large exogenous shock to the US agricultural labor supply caused by the termination of the Bracero agreements between the US and Mexico at the end of 1964. Using a text-search algorithm allocating patents to crops, I show a negative labor-supply shock induced a sharp increase in innovation in technologies related to more affected crops. The effect is stronger for technology related to labor-intensive production tasks. Farm-value dynamics indicate that, despite the positive technology reaction, the policy change was undesirable for farm owners.- Reproduced