Costs, Risks and Migration Networks between Europe and the United States, 1900-1914

Abstract

This essays explores the peak period of voluntary mass migration between Europe and the United States - 1900 to 1914. It focuses on the four major networks that enabled migration in such high numbers: kinship and community; steamship agents; steamship conferences; and government regulatory bodies. It analyses the push and pull factors of mass migration; the business risks plaguing passenger cargo over freight cargo; the US political responses to mass migration; the cost of migration; and the approaches to risk management in migration networks. It concludes by claiming that the well-documented risk-mitigating networks during the ‘Great Migration’ offers insights into the migration networks of the early twenty-first century and provides possible solutions for coping with the contemporary risks of globalisation.

Cartel Organization, Price Discrimination, and Selection of Transatlantic Migrants: 1899–1911

“…The most complete of these series is that in Keeling (), which also seems to overlap with information reported elsewhere . There are some more limited data on two ports that covers all three classes of service for westbound passage and are reported on a quarterly basis (Keeling ). All fares have been converted to U.S. dollars, and inflation adjusted to 1902 based on the historical CPI estimates of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.…”

“…Table reports the results of regressions of the log of real fares on the cartel dummy and other variables using the data series published by Keeling (). The first two columns consist of the analysis of annual steerage fares from a variety of ports (port fixed effects are included).…”