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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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter IV. Immigration and business cycles prior to 1890

Collection:: Economics Books

IMMIGRATION PRIOR TO 1890 Characteristics of the Period Prior to 18go. The period prior to 1890 may appropriately be designated as the agricultural frontier period, in that the existence of great areas of tillable free land doubtless affected materially the character of immigration during these decades. The data for analysis of this period are restricted to annual or, at best, quarterly statistics of immigration, with only such evidence of emigration as is afforded by statistics of the annual totals of outgoing passengers, virtually no statistics of employment, and only limited statistics of produc- tion. Also these seventy years are characterized by the predomin- ance of immigrants from northern and western Europe who early in the following period, even before the close of the nineties, were outnumbered by those from southern and eastern Europe.s [t is to this period prior to 1890 that we shall first turn our attention. Imports of Men and of Merchandise. A preliminary survey of the approximate relation between im- migration and business conditions over the entire period for which data are available will afford a convenient starting point for the more precise and detailed analysis which is possible for the shorter periods for which there are more adequate data. In the earlier decades of the nineteenth century there are no employment statis- tics and few records of industrial activity, but statisties of the value of annual imports of merchandise are available and, inasmuch as these vary with industrial activity in the importing countrys except in war years, they furnish an approximate measure of in- dustrial conditions. In Table 18 and Chart 10, we have the cycles in the annual statistics of immigration and of merchandise imports. The curves represent deviations from seven-year moving averages, and hence picture the condition in a given year relative to the three im- mediately preceding and three following years. For convenience in comparison the deviations are divided by the standard or typical deviation for the respective series. An examination of the evidence afforded by the fluctuations of immigration and imports for the whole period appears to support the preliminary hypothesis reached on a priori grounds; namely, that the current of immigration is markedly susceptible to changes in industrial conditions. 5See Chart 4 on page 41. ‘For similarity of fluctuations in imports to those in pig iron production, for ex- ample, see Charts 6 and 7 in Chapter III. 790

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