The rapid decline of German emigration before World War I constitutes a puzzle that traditional explanations have difficulty in solving. The article shows that the social legislation implemented by Bismarck during the 1880s—the most developed at the time—played a key role in this process. Indeed, candidates for migration considered not only the gap between “direct wages” (labor earnings) in the United States and Germany, but also the differential in “indirect wages,” that is, social benefits. In that way, Bismarck's insurance system partly offset low wage rates in Germany and furthered the fall of the emigration rate.O sprecht! warum zogt ihr von dannen?Das Neckartal hat Wein und Korn;Der Schwarzwald steht voll finstrer Tannen,Im Spessart klingt des Ålplers Horn.Wie wird es in den fremden WäldernEuch nach der Heimatberge Grün,Nach Deutschlands gelben Weizenfeldern,Nach seinen Rebenhügeln ziehn!Ferdinand Freiligrath1

While the pre-1914 mass migrations have been widely studied, the related pattern of emigrants' remittances is still largely untouched. This article aims at filling this gap by analyzing the contribution of remittances to financial stability. In the optimum currency area theory, labor mobility can ease the adjustment mechanism for countries under fixed exchange rate regimes. We confirm this claim by showing that emigrants' remittances reduced the incidence of financial disturbances among a sample of emerging economies characterized by substantial emigration. This result underscores the benefits for emerging economies from opening up to international factor flows, despite the associated financial turbulence."A fantastic rain of gold." Thus observers in the decades between the nineteenth and the twentieth century described the influx of capital toward Italy generated by emigration remittances. These flows were spread piecemeal across the countryside of the entire peninsula, especially into the poorest regions of marginal mountain agriculture. 1 onfronted with high migration outflows, a number of developing nations have seen in the financial manna of remittances a way out of their economic deadlock. A recent estimate evaluates total flows remitted in 2007 above 318 billion dollars, of which developing nations captured around 75 percent. 2 These sizeable figures have attracted the attention of growing numbers of researchers, policymakers, and

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract