In 1942, all Japanese were evacuated from the West Coast and incarcerated in internment
camps. To investigate the long-run economic consequences of this historic episode, I
exploit the fact that Hawaiian Japanese were not subject to mass internment. I find that
the labor market withdrawal induced by the internment reduced the annual earnings of
males by as much as nine to thirteen percent twenty-five years afterwards. This is
consistent with the predictions of an economic model that equates the labor market
withdrawal induced by the internment with a loss of civilian labor market experience or a
loss of advantageous job matches.