Birds of passage: Return migration, self-selection and immigration quotas

The Ethnic Segregation of Immigrants in the United States from 1850 to 1940

“…Based on the comparison of the panel and cross sectional data, return migrants came from more highly segregated neighborhoods since the cross section estimates a larger gap at arrival than the panel (58.4 percentage points versus 50.1 percentage points). Negative selection into return migration on the native-born composition of the neighborhood is consistent with evidence that return migrants were negatively selected on occupational status, English fluency and skill (Abramitzky et al, 2014;Ward, 2017;Ward, 2018). According to Panel B, the magnitude of negative selection into return migration was roughly constant across the 1900 to 1919 cohorts since the gap between the repeated crosssectional estimates and panel estimates is also roughly constant.…”

Immigration in American Economic History

“…Second, historical work is more likely to measure the flow of new migrants into the US using passenger lists, whereas the contemporary literature often analyzes the stock of immigrants observed in the US Census at a point in time (e.g., Chiquiar and Hanson, 2005). These two methods need not produce the same answer if return migration is also selective (existing evidence suggests that this is the case; see, for example, Lubotsky, 2007; Abramitzky, Boustan and Eriksson, 2014; Ward, 2015). …”

Across the Sea to Ireland: Return Atlantic Migration before the First World War

“…A key feature of the economics literature on out-migration is selfselection, or whether and how migrants who leave differ from those who remain (Borjas 1987). In the more recent literature on return migration (Borjas and Bratsberg 1987;Devanzo 1996Devanzo , 1998Dustmann 2003;Ward 2017;Stark 2018) the issue is analogous. This issue will also be our focus here.…”