The Age of Mass Migration (1850-1913) was among the largest migration episodes in history. Unlike today, the United States maintained an open border in this era. We compile a novel dataset of Norway-to-US migrants and estimate the return to migration while accounting for migrant selection. Our...

In the 21st century the idea has gained ground that large-scale migration is not a major engine driving society but, rather, an anarchic component of social change, a misfitting tile in the mosaic, background noise breaking into the even hum of social life. And yet the ability to move and...

Armed conflicts, natural disasters and infrastructure projects continue to force millions into migration. This is especially true for developing countries. After World War II, about 8 million ethnic Germans experienced a similar situation when forced to leave their homelands and settle within...

This volume was prepared by Susanne Link during her stay at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich and the Department of Human Capital and Innovation of the Ifo Institute of Economic Research. It was accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Economics Departure of the University of Munich in...

I use a longitudinal dataset of individuals entering and exiting Israeli kibbutzim, communities that engage in equal sharing of output, to test the mobility patterns induced by redistribution. I find evidence of negative selection in entry to kibbutzim and positive selection in exit. Entrants...

This is a survey of some of the key studies in the literature on international migration in history that may be described as cliometric. This literature uses the concepts and approaches of applied economics to investigate a range of historical issues and there are strong parallels with the...

This is a survey of some of the key studies in the literature on international migration in history that may be described as cliometric. This literature uses the concepts and approaches of applied economics to investigate a range of historical issues and there are strong parallels with the...

An economic theory of immigration and immigrant absorption for a religious minority is developed and applied to Jewish history. Human capital is classified according to whether it is allocative or productive, transferable or location-specific, general or Jewish. Crossclassifying these categories...

This paper is concerned with the determinants and consequences of intercontinental migration over the past four centuries. It begins with a review of the history of primarily trans- Atlantic migration to the New World during the period of Colonial settlement. The contract and coerced migration...

Ghost towns dot the West of the United States. These cities boomed for a period and then, for various reasons, fell into a process of decline and have shrunk to a small fraction of their former population. Are there ghost countries—countries that, if there were population mobility, would only...