IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/jechis/v74y2014i04p1015-1044_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Who Crossed the Border? Self-Selection of Mexican Migrants in the Early Twentieth Century

Author

Listed:
  • Kosack, Edward
  • Ward, Zachary

Abstract

We estimate the self-selection of Mexican migrants into and out of the United States in the 1920s. Officials recorded migrant height on border crossing manifests, which we use to proxy migrant quality and to measure self-selection into migration in 1920. Migrants were positively selected on height compared to the Mexican population. We link these migrants to the 1930 U.S. and Mexican censuses to obtain samples of permanent and return migrants and to estimate the selection into return migration. Return migrants were not differentially self-selected on height relative to permanent migrants.

Suggested Citation

  • Kosack, Edward & Ward, Zachary, 2014. "Who Crossed the Border? Self-Selection of Mexican Migrants in the Early Twentieth Century," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 74(4), pages 1015-1044, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jechis:v:74:y:2014:i:04:p:1015-1044_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0022050714000849/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ran Abramitzky & Roy Mill & Santiago Pérez, 2020. "Linking individuals across historical sources: A fully automated approach," Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(2), pages 94-111, April.
    2. David Escamilla-Guerrero, 2020. "Revisiting Mexican migration in the Age of Mass Migration: New evidence from individual border crossings," Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(4), pages 207-225, October.
    3. Catron, Peter & Loria, Maria Vignau, 2021. "The Economic Attainment of Mexican Refugees during the Age of Mass Migration," SocArXiv qgj3p, Center for Open Science.
    4. Ward, Zachary, 2017. "Birds of passage: Return migration, self-selection and immigration quotas," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 37-52.
    5. David Escamilla-Guerrero & Moramay Lopez-Alonso, 2019. "Self-selection of Mexican migrants in the presence of random shocks: Evidence from the Panic of 1907," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2019-23, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    6. Santiago Pérez, 2019. "Southern (American) Hospitality: Italians in Argentina and the US during the Age of Mass Migration," NBER Working Papers 26127, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Eric B. Schneider & Kota Ogasawara & Tim J. Cole, 2021. "Health Shocks, Recovery, and the First Thousand Days: The Effect of the Second World War on Height Growth in Japanese Children," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 47(4), pages 1075-1105, December.
    8. Ran Abramitzky & Leah Boustan, 2017. "Immigration in American Economic History," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1311-1345, December.
    9. Zachary Ward, 2015. "The U-Shaped Self-Selection of Return Migrants," CEH Discussion Papers 035, Centre for Economic History, Research School of Economics, Australian National University.
    10. Catherine G. Massey, 2016. "Playing with Matches: An Assessment of Accuracy in Linked Historical Data," CARRA Working Papers 2016-05, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    11. Alexander Persaud, 2023. "A (paid) passage to India: Migration and revealed willingness to pay for upper‐caste status," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 61(3), pages 652-674, July.
    12. Ran Abramitzky & Leah Boustan & Katherine Eriksson & James Feigenbaum & Santiago Pérez, 2021. "Automated Linking of Historical Data," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 59(3), pages 865-918, September.
    13. Escamilla Guerrero, David & Lepistö, Miko & Minns, Chris, 2022. "Explaining gender differences in migrant sorting: evidence from Canada-US migration," Economic History Working Papers 117260, London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History.
    14. Escamilla-Guerrero, David & López-Alonso, Moramay, 2023. "Migrant Self-Selection and Random Shocks: Evidence from the Panic of 1907," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 83(1), pages 45-85, March.
    15. Escamilla-Guerrero, David & Kosack, Edward & Ward, Zachary, 2021. "Life after crossing the border: Assimilation during the first Mexican mass migration," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    16. Michael A. Clemens, 2022. "Migration on the Rise, a Paradigm in Decline: The Last Half-Century of Global Mobility," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 112, pages 257-261, May.
    17. Schneider, Eric & Ogasawara, Kota & Cole, Tim J., 2020. "The Effect of the Second World War on the Growth Pattern of Height in Japanese Children: Catch-up Growth, Critical Windows and," CEPR Discussion Papers 14808, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    18. Philipp Ager & James J Feigenbaum & Casper W Hansen & Hui Ren Tan, 2024. "How the Other Half Died: Immigration and Mortality in U.S. Cities," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 91(1), pages 1-44.
    19. Greenwood, Michael J. & Ward, Zachary, 2015. "Immigration quotas, World War I, and emigrant flows from the United States in the early 20th century," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 76-96.
    20. Fernández, Martín & Tortorici, Gaspare, 2024. "Male and female self-selection during the Portuguese mass migration, 1885–1930," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    21. Matthias Blum & Claudia Rei, 2018. "Escaping Europe: health and human capital of Holocaust refugees1," European Review of Economic History, European Historical Economics Society, vol. 22(1), pages 1-27.
    22. David Escamilla-Guerrero & Edward Kosack & Zachary Ward, 2023. "The Impact of Violence during the Mexican Revolution on Migration to the United States," NBER Working Papers 31531, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    23. Spitzer, Yannay & Zimran, Ariell, 2018. "Migrant self-selection: Anthropometric evidence from the mass migration of Italians to the United States, 1907–1925," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 226-247.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:jechis:v:74:y:2014:i:04:p:1015-1044_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/jeh .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.