Migration and business cycles

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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

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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 173 Certain limitations of the method used in constructing these composite indices will, of course, be recognized. For one thing, they may convey an exaggerated impression of the homogeneity of cyclical fluctuations in the given country. The averaging of several series obscures differences which may not be altogether un- important in their effects on migration tendencies. Furthermore, the use of moving averages in estimating the trend, in some instances, such as toward the end of a depression period which is followed by a rapid recovery, results in extending the computed depression period beyond the time when in absolute terms the several economic phenomena are beginning to show signs of recovery. For example, in 1879, the production of pig iron in Germany was 2,227,000 tons, as compared with only 2,148,000 in 1878, but because this increase is less than the computed increment to the trend line from 1878 to 1879, the movement in the cycle curve from 1878 to 1879 appears as a decline for pig iron. This tendency may account for occasional discrepancies between the evidence presented by the cycle curve and the descriptive ac- counts of variations in business conditions. Inasmuch as the cycle curves for migration and the industrial composites are computed by the same method, occasional minor discrepancies between inter- pretations which rest on the unadjusted statistics and those based upon the cycle curves do not necessarily affect the validity of comparisons between the cycle curves. International Similarities in Business Cycles (Chart 40) A comparison of the cycles of economic conditions in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Italy reveals that the fluctuations in the first three countries show marked similarities, although the agreement is by no means complete or invariable. In each of these three countries there was a boom in the early seventies followed by a decline in the middle part of the decade which con- tinued well toward the end. Likewise, each experienced a boom in the early eighties, a decline near the middle of the decade, and a recovery in the late eighties or in the first years of the following decade, then a depression in the middle nineties, and a recovery again at the turn of the century. In each, a depression appears in 1904, a marked rise culminating in 1907, and a sharp decline in 1908, followed in a year or two by the beginning of a recovery which, during the remainder of the period prior to 1914, is not broken in any of the three countries by a reaction as severe as that of 1908.

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