International migration with capital constraints: interpreting migration from the Netherlands to Canada in the 1920s

Armstrong, Alex; Lewis, F. A.

doi:10.1111/j.1540-5982.2012.01714.x

Cited by 13 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…But because the costs and benefits of migration vary by individual characteristics, migrants are rarely randomly selected from their population. Human capital, or skill, is a key variable in the decision to migrate because skill relates to variables that enable migration, such as income, wealth, and liquidity, and to the expected returns of migration (Sjaastad 1962, Borjas 1987, Chiquiar and Hanson 2005, Armstrong and Lewis 2012.…”

Section: Migration From Climate Shocks and Selectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Migrant Selection and Sorting during the Great American Drought

Sichko¹

2021

Preprint

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Migration is among the most basic adaptation methods to inhospitable environments and has large economic consequences for both migrants and the broader economy. To estimate the impact of the worst drought in U.S. history on migration, I match 1940 census data with county-level drought conditions. I find that drought substantially increased migration rates for individuals with a 12th grade education or higher but had little impact on migration rates for people with less education. This differential migration response to drought by education was most pronounced in counties with larger economic downturns during the Great Depression, consistent with the hypothesis that individual liquidity constraints limited migration for people with lower human capital. In terms of where migrants went, I show that the majority of migrants in the late 1930s relocated to rural destinations. In fact, migrants from drought counties were less likely to relocate to cities compared to similar migrants from non-drought counties. These findings detail the impact of widespread drought for Depression-era migration and document the central role of individual human capital in the uptake of migration from climate shocks.

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Section: Migration From Climate Shocks and Selectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Migrant Selection and Sorting during the Great American Drought

Sichko¹

2021

Preprint

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“…Given a moving cost, K, the income stream over the lifetime is given by: 20 On Italian immigration and the farm labour system, see Sturino (1988). 21 The model follows Armstrong and Lewis (2012), which looked specifically at migration to Canada from the Netherlands. In that paper the emphasis was on savings and the timing of migration.…”

Section: Canadian Policy and Immigration During The 1920smentioning

confidence: 99%

“…9 The taste parameter, concern for status, and a borrowing constraint are all part of a life-cycle model, where an individual chooses optimal migration time, and based on that optimal time, compares lifetime utility if they do or do not migrate. In Armstrong and Lewis (2012), we considered migration from the Netherlands to Canada using a life-cycle framework where our emphasis was on savings and migration time. Here we extend the analysis to four more European countries: Ireland, Italy, Poland, and Sweden.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transatlantic wage gaps and the migration decision: Europe–Canada in the 1920s

Armstrong

Lewis

2016

Cliometrica

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As has been seen in other contexts, workers in similar occupations earned much higher wages in Canada than Europe during the 1920s. This observation and related aspects of immigration are addressed with a life-cycle model of the migration decision. The characteristics of immigrants from five European countries: Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, and Sweden, are explored in a way that sheds light not just on those population flows but on the process of immigration generally. We draw on passenger manifests from immigrant ships for information on the individual migrants. Simulations, based partly on the these manifests, reveal that the costs of migration, borrowing constraints, concern for status, and country-specific taste preferences account for key immigrant characteristics, and help explain the large wage differentials that persisted despite Canada's relatively open immigration policy.

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“…The 1920s is also the focus of Alex Armstrong and Frank Lewis's () work on migration. They use ship passenger manifests to help explain the large wage differences between Canada and the countries of origin of the immigrants.…”

Section: Migrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contributions to Canadian economic history: The last 30 years

Hamilton

Keay

Lewis

2017

Canadian J of Economics

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The cliometric revolution that transformed economic history in the US in the 1960s was soon embraced by Canadian economic historians. Many of the important issues surrounding Canadian development remained the same: the role of resources, the place of international trade, immigration, capital accumulation and interactions with Native Americans, among others. But beginning in the 1960s, and certainly over the last 30 years, economic historians of Canada have addressed them with the tools of modern economics, both theoretical and empirical. We highlight the recent work emphasizing not just the methods but also the fundamental ways our understanding of Canadian history has been changed.

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International migration with capital constraints: interpreting migration from the Netherlands to Canada in the 1920s

Cited by 13 publications

References 22 publications

Migrant Selection and Sorting during the Great American Drought

Migrant Selection and Sorting during the Great American Drought

Transatlantic wage gaps and the migration decision: Europe–Canada in the 1920s

Contributions to Canadian economic history: The last 30 years

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