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 I. The problem

Collection:: Economics Books

THE PROBLEM 7 they lessen the inequalities in employment due to seasonal and cyclical variations in industrial activity. The immigrant, they say, comes and goes as he is wanted, aiding us when the need for men is greatest, departing to his native country when jobs are scarce. The maladjustment theory. On the other hand, those who take a more pessimistic view urge that migration fails to synchronize well with the seasonal and cyclical fluctuations in industry and to that extent increases unemployment in dull seasons of the year and in periods of industrial depression. They suggest that when industry begins to slacken, immigration continues, and even if it decreases in volume, the change comes too slowly to aid materially in the improvement of employment conditions.* Furthermore, it is sug- gested, the very fact that a new supply of labor is available in times of industrial expansion is a vicious influence in that it enables the employer to enlarge the scope of his operations readily, and by this very expansion increases the intensity of the subsequent de- pression. ? As usual in such cases, there is doubtless some element of truth in both points of view—that which stresses the susceptibility of mi- oration to employment conditions, and that which stresses the im- perfections of such adjustments. The relative credence to be given to these conflicting interpretations can be determined only by close scrutiny of the ways in which the tide of migration ebbs and flows with seasonal and cyclical changes in industrial activity. Summary of the Contents of Succeeding Chapters. The first of the following chapters is devoted to a sketch of the major features of immigration into the United States, partly to in- dicate the reasons for the selection of the elements to which special attention is given and the reasons for the methods of analysis which are applied, and partly for the convenience of those readers who have not given close attention to the character of immigration into this country in recent decades. This chapter can be scanned quickly by the reader who is familiar with the major features of im- migration to the United States. To facilitate the study of the relation of migration to employ- ment conditions, it is necessary to have before us a picture of the alternations in prosperity and depression during the period covered by our analysis. Accordingly, in the third chapter, we turn to a 3See the argument by Professor Gustav Cassel to the effect that immigration ag- gravates the severity of depressions, The Theory of Social Economy, Vol. II, pp. 545-547. *Cf. Director’s footnote ‘a’, p. 120. 9

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