FOREWORD
Migration and Business Cycles presents the results of investigations
 made by the National Bureau of Economic Research at the
request of a committee of the National Research Council. It forms
part of two series of studies. One series, planned by the Committee
on Scientific Problems of Human Migration, deals with the charaecter,
 causes, and effects of mass-movements of men. The second
series, planned by the National Bureau, deals with the character,
causes, and effects of cyclical fluctuations in economic activities.
The Committee on Scientific Problems of Human Migration was
appointed in October, 1922, by the National Research Council on
recommendation of the Council’s Division of Anthropology and
Psychology. Its duties were
(1) carefully to consider, from the point of view of natural
science, the complex migrational situation resulting from the
World War and from the virtual elimination of space as a
barrier to movements of man and to race intermixture;
2) to prepare a research program which might reasonably be
expected to yield ultimately such reliable information concerning
 physical, mental, and social characteristics, relations
and values of ethnic groups (races and peoples) as is necessary
 for the understanding and wise regulation of massmovements
 of mankind; and
(2) to initiate, organize, support, coordinate, or otherwise further,
in accordance with the best judgment of the group, important
 investigations.:
The members of this Committee as originally organized were Dr.
Raymond Dodge, then Professor of Psychology at Wesleyan University,
 Dr. Frank R. Lillie, Professor of Zoology at the University of
Chicago, Dr. John C. Merriam, President of the Carnegie Institution
 of Washington, Miss Mary Van Kleeck, Director of Industrial
Studies in the Russell Sage Foundation, Dr. Clark Wissler, Curator
See the report of Dr. Robert M. Yerkes, Chairman of the Committee, Journal of
Personnel Research, October, 1924, vol. iii, p. 189.

MN