In the 1920s, the United States substantially reduced immigration by imposing country-specific entry quotas. We compare local labor markets differentially exposed to the quotas due to variation in the national-origin mix of their immigrant population. US-born workers in areas losing immigrants...

Immigrants who arrived in the U.S. before the Civil War were less likely to reside in locations with high immigrant concentrations as their time in the U.S. increased. This is contrary to the experience of recent immigrants who show no decrease in concentration after arrival. The reduced...

The cultural assimilation of immigrants into the host society is often equated with prospects for economic success, with religion seen as a potential barrier. We investigate the role of ethnic enclaves and churches for the assimilation of Danish Americans using a difference-indifferences...

Etwa 52 Millionen Menschen verließen im 19. Jahrhundert Europa, 32 Million davon in Richtung USA. Dabei stellten Deutsche zwischen 1850 und 1890 die zahlenmäßig größte Gruppe unter ihnen. Viele dieser Personen waren qualifizierte Fachkräfte, die mithalfen, die noch junge und wachsende...

The introduction of immigration quotas in the 1920s fundamentally changed U.S. immigration policy. We exploit this policy change to estimate the economic consequences of immigration restrictions for the U.S. economy. The implementation of the quota system led to a long-lasting relative decline...

The introduction of immigration quotas in the 1920s fundamentally changed U.S. immigration policy. We exploit this policy change to estimate the economic consequences of immigration restrictions for the U.S. economy. The implementation of the quota system led to a long-lasting relative decline...

Ethnic religious organizations are often blamed for slowing down immigrants' assimilation in host societies. This paper offers the first systematic evidence on this topic by focusing on Italian Catholic churches in the US between 1890 and 1920, when four million Italians had moved to America,...

The closing of the United States to immigrants is arguably the most economically and socially significant policy shift in American history. The U.S. had virtually open borders until 1879, when the first of a series of federal laws prohibiting or limiting immigration of particular groups was...

We combine full-count Census data (1850-1940) with Census/ACS samples (1950-2020) to provide the first nationally representative long-run series (1850-2020) of incarceration rates for immigrants and the US-born. As a group, immigrants had higher incarceration rates than US-born white men before...

This paper studies in- and out-migration from the U.S. during the first half of the twentieth century and assesses how these flows affected state-level labor markets. It shows that out-migration positively impacted the wages of remaining workers, while in-migration had a negative impact. Hence,...