Abstract
This paper uses newly digitized data to study the effects of federal minimum wage and maximum hour regulations on the industrial development of the U.S. South. The Fair Labor Standars Act of 1938 was introduced at a time of large regional wage disparities. This paper brings new evidence on how national labor market regulations affects regional development, and builds a multi-sector quantitative spatial model featuring input-output linkages to quantify the worker selection forces on the labor supply side versus the technology adoption channels on the labor demand side.