TY  - JOUR
AU  - Abramitzky,Ran
AU  - Boustan,Leah Platt
AU  - Eriksson,Katherine
TI  - Have the Poor Always Been Less Likely to Migrate? Evidence From Inheritance Practices During the Age of Mass Migration
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 18298
PY  - 2012
Y2  - August 2012
DO  - 10.3386/w18298
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w18298
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w18298.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  - 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.
ER  -