TY  - JOUR
AU  - Abramitzky,Ran
AU  - Boustan,Leah Platt
AU  - Eriksson,Katherine
TI  - Europe's tired, poor, huddled masses: Self-selection and economic outcomes in the age of mass migration
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 15684
PY  - 2010
Y2  - January 2010
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15684
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15684.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Ran Abramitzky
Department of Economics
Stanford University
579 Serra Mall
Stanford, CA 94305
Tel: 650/723-9276
Fax: 650/725-5702
E-Mail: ranabr@stanford.edu

Leah Platt Boustan
Department of Economics
8283 Bunche Hall
UCLA
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1477
Tel: 310/794-4263
Fax: 310/825-9528
E-Mail: lboustan@econ.ucla.edu

Katherine Eriksson
Department of Economics
8283 Bunche Hall
UCLA
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1477
E-Mail: kath722@ucla.edu
AB  - The Age of Mass Migration (1850-1913) was among the largest migration episodes in history. During this period, the United States maintained open borders. Using a novel dataset of Norway-to-US migrants, we estimate the return to migration while accounting for migrant selection across households by comparing migrants with their brothers who stayed in Norway. We also compare the fathers of migrants and non-migrants by wealth and occupation, and examine migrants’ assimilation in the US labor market. We find that, unhindered by entry restrictions, migrants were negatively selected from the sending population and their return to migration was relatively low.
ER  -