Immigrants and the Making of America

@article{Sequeira2019ImmigrantsAT,
  title={Immigrants and the Making of America},
  author={Sandra Sequeira and Nathan Nunn and Nancy Qian},
  journal={The Review of Economic Studies},
  year={2019}
}
We study the effects of European immigration to the U.S. during the Age of Mass Migration (1850–1920) on economic prosperity. Exploiting cross-county variation in immigration that arises from the interaction of fluctuations in aggregate immigrant flows and of the gradual expansion of the railway network, we find that counties with more historical immigration have higher income, less poverty, less unemployment, higher rates of urbanization, and greater educational attainment today. The long… 
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117 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
14
Background Citations
57
Methods Citations
11
Results Citations
7

117 Citations

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Immigrants and cities during the age of mass migration
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Using recent innovations in linking historical U.S. Census data, we study the economic impacts of immigration on natives, including their geographic migration response. We find that the arrival of…
The Effect of Immigration Restrictions on Local Labor Markets: Lessons from the 1920s Border Closure
In the 1920s, the United States substantially reduced immigration by imposing country-specific entry quotas. We compare local labor markets differentially exposed to the quotas due to variation in…
Gifts of the Immigrants, Woes of the Natives: Lessons from the Age of Mass Migration - Online Appendix A to E
  • M. Tabellini
  • Economics, Sociology
    The Review of Economic Studies
  • 2019
In this article, I jointly investigate the political and the economic effects of immigration, and study the causes of anti-immigrant sentiments. I exploit exogenous variation in European immigration…
Immigration, Innovation, and Growth
We show a causal impact of immigration on innovation and dynamism in US counties. To identify the causal impact of immigration, we use 130 years of detailed data on migrations from foreign countries…
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More than 30 million people migrated to the US between the 1850s and 1920s and in order of thousands became inventors and patentees. Drawing on a novel dataset of immigrant inventors in the US, we…
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Gifts of the Immigrants, Woes of the Natives: Lessons from the Age of Mass Migration - Online Appendix A to E
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    The Review of Economic Studies
  • 2019
In this article, I jointly investigate the political and the economic effects of immigration, and study the causes of anti-immigrant sentiments. I exploit exogenous variation in European immigration…
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