Have the Poor Always Been Less Likely to Migrate? Evidence From Inheritance Practices During the Age of Mass Migration

Ran Abramitzky, Leah Boustan and Katherine Eriksson ()

No 18298, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Using novel data on 50,000 Norwegian men, we study the effect of wealth on the probability of internal or international migration during the Age of Mass Migration (1850-1913), a time when the US maintained an open border to European immigrants. We do so by exploiting variation in parental wealth and in expected inheritance by birth order, gender composition of siblings, and region. We find that wealth discouraged migration in this era, suggesting that the poor could be more likely to move if migration restrictions were lifted today. We discuss the implications of these historical findings to developing countries.

JEL-codes: J61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-mig
Note: DAE LS
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Published as Abramitzky, Ran & Boustan, Leah Platt & Eriksson, Katherine, 2013. "Have the poor always been less likely to migrate? Evidence from inheritance practices during the age of mass migration," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 2-14.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w18298.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Have the poor always been less likely to migrate? Evidence from inheritance practices during the age of mass migration (2013)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18298

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w18298

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().