Migration and business cycles

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1736236210

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-111544

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Jerome, Harry

Title:: Migration and business cycles

Place of publication:: New York

Publisher:: National Bureau of Economic Research

Year of publication:: 1926

Scope:: 256 S.

Digitisation:: 2020

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter VIII. The influence of economic conditions in the countries of emigration

Collection:: Economics Books

INFLUENCE OF ECONOMIC CONDITIONS 171 States, Great Britain, and Germany.: Professor Hansen divides his series into three groups: the Investment, Industrial, and Banking Groups, respectively. Of these, the Industrial Group is most per- tinent to a study of migration. For the United States the Industrial Group is constituted of wholesale commodity prices, pig iron production, railroad gross earnings, imports, and immigration; for Germany, of wholesale prices and pig iron production; and for Great Britain, of imports and exports. After careful analysis of these three composites, Professor Hansen comes to the conclusion that ‘“‘the cyclical movements are quite closely concurrent,” that is, there is a general tendency for the periods of prosperity to coincide in these countries and likewise for the depression troughs to be reached about the same time. Our own analysis of comparative economic conditions in this and other countries is based chiefly upon certain statistical indices of economic activities, to be described presently, and upon portions of descriptive annals of industrial and agricultural conditions pre- pared by Dr. Willard Thorp, of the research staff of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Composite Indices of Economic Activity. To facilitate the international comparison of business cycles, we have utilized composite indices of economic activity in the res- pective countries. For the United States we made use of a com- posite index prepared by Professor W. F. Ogburn and Dorothy S. Thomas, for the years from 1870 to 1920, using nine economic series: namely, wholesale prices (1870-1915), commercial failures (1870- 1920), bituminous coal production (1870-1920), pig iron production (1870-1920), railroad freight ton mileage (1882-1920), bank clearings outside New York City (1881-1915), employment in Massachusetts (1889-1920), railroad mileage constructed (1870-1888), and imports (1870-1888). In constructing this index a mathematical trend curve was fitted to each series, the percentage deviations therefrom computed, and the results expressed as cycles, in units of the typical or standard deviation. Then the cycles thus obtained for each separate series were averaged to obtain the composite index. For the United Kingdom, Germany, and Italy, we have com- 3Alvin Harvey Hansen, Cycles of Prosperity and Depression in the United States, Great Britain and Germany—A study of Monthly Data 1902-1908, University of Wiscon- sin Studies in the Social Sciences and History, Number 5. “The Influence of the Business Cycle on Certain Social Conditions,” Quarterly Publication of the American Statistical Association, September, 1922, p. 327.

Access restriction

Copyright

fullscreen: Migration and business cycles

Monograph

Chapter

Table of contents

Download

Monograph

Chapter

This page

Image fragment

Citation links

Citation recommendation