Migrant self-selection and random shocks: evidence from the panic of 1907

David Escamilla-Guerrero; Moramay López-Alonso

doi:10.1017/S0022050722000535

Migrant self-selection and random shocks: evidence from the panic of 1907

David Escamilla-Guerrero^*
, Moramay López-Alonso

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

We study the impact of the 1907 Panic, the most severe economic crisis before the Great Depression, on the selection of Mexican immigration. We find that migrants were positively selected on height before the crisis. This pattern changed to negative selection during the crisis but returned to positive selection afterward. Adjustments in selection were partially mediated by the enganche, a historical labor-recruiting system that reduced migration costs but only for taller laborers with above-average earnings potential. We document that labor recruiting contributed to maintaining the relatively constant height profile of the migration flow in the short run.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	45-85
Number of pages	41
Journal	Journal of Economic History
Volume	83
Issue number	1
Early online date	26 Jan 2023
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022050722000535
Publication status	Published - 20 Mar 2023

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This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 10 Reduced Inequalities

Keywords

Mexico-US migration
Labor recruiting
Migrant selection

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10.1017/S0022050722000535Licence: CC BY

Escamilla-Guerrero_2023_JEH_Migrantself-selection_CC
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Economic History Association. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Final published version, 2.35 MBLicence: CC BY

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title = "Migrant self-selection and random shocks: evidence from the panic of 1907",

abstract = "We study the impact of the 1907 Panic, the most severe economic crisis before the Great Depression, on the selection of Mexican immigration. We find that migrants were positively selected on height before the crisis. This pattern changed to negative selection during the crisis but returned to positive selection afterward. Adjustments in selection were partially mediated by the enganche, a historical labor-recruiting system that reduced migration costs but only for taller laborers with above-average earnings potential. We document that labor recruiting contributed to maintaining the relatively constant height profile of the migration flow in the short run.",

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note = "Funding: This research was developed with the financial support of the Radwan Travel and Discovery Fund (2016) - LSE; the Pre-Dissertation Exploratory Grant (2017) - Economic History Association; and the Research Fund for Graduate Students (2017) - Economic History Society.",

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N1 - Funding: This research was developed with the financial support of the Radwan Travel and Discovery Fund (2016) - LSE; the Pre-Dissertation Exploratory Grant (2017) - Economic History Association; and the Research Fund for Graduate Students (2017) - Economic History Society.

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N2 - We study the impact of the 1907 Panic, the most severe economic crisis before the Great Depression, on the selection of Mexican immigration. We find that migrants were positively selected on height before the crisis. This pattern changed to negative selection during the crisis but returned to positive selection afterward. Adjustments in selection were partially mediated by the enganche, a historical labor-recruiting system that reduced migration costs but only for taller laborers with above-average earnings potential. We document that labor recruiting contributed to maintaining the relatively constant height profile of the migration flow in the short run.

AB - We study the impact of the 1907 Panic, the most severe economic crisis before the Great Depression, on the selection of Mexican immigration. We find that migrants were positively selected on height before the crisis. This pattern changed to negative selection during the crisis but returned to positive selection afterward. Adjustments in selection were partially mediated by the enganche, a historical labor-recruiting system that reduced migration costs but only for taller laborers with above-average earnings potential. We document that labor recruiting contributed to maintaining the relatively constant height profile of the migration flow in the short run.

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KW - Labor recruiting

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ER -

Migrant self-selection and random shocks: evidence from the panic of 1907

Abstract

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