Rent Seeking, The Bracero Program And Current Mexican Farm Labor Policy

This Paper focus on how official support for labor importation (specifically the Bracero program) varies with the economic rent available to specific special interest groups. The Bracero program was the largest temporary "guest worker" labor program in US history. This study examines the motives underlying the House and Senate vote on the final extension of the vote on the Bracero Program in 1963 and the current House vote on the Mexican farm labor policy in 1996. It tests whether legislators respond to the rent-seeking behavior of competing special interest groups. The actual testimony on the Bracero program is used to identify some of the competing special interest groups and to develop a prohibit model of the vote. [J4, K2, N4]