Between 1850 and 1914 about 55 million Europeans migrated to the New World including North and South America, and Australia. This movement marked a profound shift in global population and economic activity. The authors describe this phenomenon and analyse the effects that underlie it.
About 55 million Europeans migrated to the New World between 1850 and 1914, landing in North and South America and in Australia. This mass migration marked a profound shift in the distribution of global population and economic activity. In this book, Timothy J. Hatton and Jeffrey G. Williamson
describe the migration and analyze its causes and effects. Their study offers a comprehensive treatment of a vital period in the modern economic development of the Western world. Moreover, it explores questions that we still debate today: Why does a nation's emigration rate typically rise with early
industrialization? How do immigrants choose their destinations? Are international labor markets segmented? Do immigrants "rob" jobs from locals? What impact do migrants have on living standards in the host and sending countries? Did mass migration make an important contribution to the catching-up of
poor countries on rich? Did it create a globalization backlash?
This work takes a new view of mass migration. Although often bold and controversial in method, it is the first to assign an explicitly economic interpretation to this important social phenomenon. The Age of Mass Migration will be useful to all students of migration, and to anyone interested in
economic growth and globalization.
'(The authors) have painstakingly pieced together historical data sets from diverse sources and conducted rigorous analyses to provide an understanding of the economic fundamentals of European mass migration. ... Hatton and Williamson are to be congratulated for weaving together a series of empirically rigorous studies of European emigration into a superbly written and edited volume ... should be on the must-read list of scholars interested in the labour market impacts of contemporary immigration to the United States.' Economic Geography
