Speaker: Nicole Saito
Title: The Impact of Expropriation on Educational Attainment: Evidence from the Japanese American Internment of WWII
Abstract: During WWII, the United States forcibly expelled roughly 110,000 Japanese Americans from the West Coast and incarcerated them in prison camps for 2.5-3 years. This project tests the impact of expropriation which occurred on the eve of incarceration on Japanese Americans' post-war labor market outcomes, particularly educational investment. In the absence of comprehensive property data, I utilize variation in the timing of internment over the West Coast as a proxy for the intensity of property loss. I argue that in areas where Japanese Americans were expelled earlier on, victims were more constrained in their capacity to shield their property against expropriation. After controlling for prison camp assignment and pre-war farm status, I find that Japanese Americans expelled earlier were less likely to return to the West Coast than their later-affected counterparts, consistent with the idea that timing and property loss were negatively correlated. However, gains in educational attainment among second-generation Japanese Americans were primarily driven by those whose parents were farm operators before the war. This suggests that the forced, accelerated transition out of agriculture via expropriation drove at least the short-run increase in Japanese Americans' human capital investment by disrupting intergenerational occupational persistence.
Maggie Hendrix
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