AGRICULTURAL WAGES 803 



practically able to choose; or even to a stimulation of a general 

 increase in population by increase of births, resulting from the 

 encouragement of marriages among young people due to generous 

 remuneration of labor, whether the labor be self-employed or hired 

 out to a master. In the first of the problems, the attraction of high 

 wages in a particular industry or locality needs to be sufficient to 

 outweigh the similar attraction of other industries, and also, perhaps, 

 the common disinclination to change trade or place of residence, a dis- 

 inclination which, though common, is not universal. Further, the 

 number of hours in the day, days in the week, or weeks in the year, 

 which are devoted to work is affected by the rate of remuneration 

 secured. When these various features are taken into account, the 

 range of elasticity of supply of labor can be estimated. The whole 

 supply procurable may be such that its productivity is considerably 

 greater than the equivalence of the price which is adequate to divert 

 it from other employments and induce sufficient continuity and vigor 

 of work. In this case the marginal demand-price may exceed the 

 corresponding supply-price. Should rival employers be bidding 

 keenly against each other for the control of such a supply of labor, 

 the tendency would be for wages to be placed at a figure well above 

 the lowest which would suffice to secure the requisite supply but for 

 such competition among buyers. Again, if the sellers of the labor 

 be conscious of the advantage they enjoy by such relative scarcity, 

 and if they are good bargainers, or have enough of such among them 

 to set a standard for the best, or be associated for the purpose and led 

 by a good bargainer, they may secure for their labor a price well above 

 what would suffice to prevent them from withdrawing part of the 

 supply, though, of course, not exceeding the marginal demand-price 

 determined by the productivity. If the employer were actuated by 

 motives which made it important to secure labor even at a price 

 which involved pecuniary loss, the wage might for a time go beyond 

 even the equivalent of the marginal productivity. 



In a manner corresponding to that which affords peculiarly 

 advantageous conditions to labor which is scarce, conditions exception- 

 ally unfavorable may affect bodies of laborers who are unable or 

 unwilling to transfer themselves to other localities or trades when 

 their own occupation ceases to be profitable. A price for their labor 

 which would not have sufficed to bring them into the trade or locality 

 may yet fail to reduce the supply to an amount which can be profitably 

 employed at such adequate wages. The oversupply will lead to one 



