{"title":"The sleeping giant who left for America: Danish land inequality and emigration during the age of mass migration","authors":"Nina Boberg-Fazlić , Markus Lampe , Paul Sharp","doi":"10.1016/j.eeh.2023.101525","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>What is the role of access to land for the decision to emigrate? We consider the case of Denmark between 1868 and 1908, when a large number of people left for America. We exploit the fact that the Danish agrarian reforms between 1784 and 1807 had differential impacts on the class of landless laborers around the country, and use detailed parish-level data police protocols of emigrants; population censuses and land registers to show that areas with a more unequal distribution of land witnessed greater emigration. We demonstrate a sizable effect: a one standard deviation increase in the Theil index implies an increase in emigration of 18 percent above the mean.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47413,"journal":{"name":"Explorations in Economic History","volume":"91 ","pages":"Article 101525"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6000,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Explorations in Economic History","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014498323000190","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
What is the role of access to land for the decision to emigrate? We consider the case of Denmark between 1868 and 1908, when a large number of people left for America. We exploit the fact that the Danish agrarian reforms between 1784 and 1807 had differential impacts on the class of landless laborers around the country, and use detailed parish-level data police protocols of emigrants; population censuses and land registers to show that areas with a more unequal distribution of land witnessed greater emigration. We demonstrate a sizable effect: a one standard deviation increase in the Theil index implies an increase in emigration of 18 percent above the mean.
期刊介绍:
Explorations in Economic History provides broad coverage of the application of economic analysis to historical episodes. The journal has a tradition of innovative applications of theory and quantitative techniques, and it explores all aspects of economic change, all historical periods, all geographical locations, and all political and social systems. The journal includes papers by economists, economic historians, demographers, geographers, and sociologists. Explorations in Economic History is the only journal where you will find "Essays in Exploration." This unique department alerts economic historians to the potential in a new area of research, surveying the recent literature and then identifying the most promising issues to pursue.