IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/imf/imfwpa/2002-123.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Migration and Human Capital Formation: Theory and Evidence From the U.S. High School Movement

Author

Listed:
  • Mr. Rodney Ramcharan

Abstract

In 1910, 12 percent of American 14-17 year olds were enrolled in high school; by 1930, enrollment had increased to 50 percent; enrollment in Britain was 12 percent in 1950. This paper argues that by increasing the skill premium, the massive inflows of European unskilled immigrants at the turn of the twentieth century engendered America's sharp rise in human capital investment. The increased enrollments raised the supply of schools, leading to continued schooling investment. Cross section evidence and a VAR analysis of the time series data support the hypothesized role of immigration in generating the high school movement.

Suggested Citation

  • Mr. Rodney Ramcharan, 2002. "Migration and Human Capital Formation: Theory and Evidence From the U.S. High School Movement," IMF Working Papers 2002/123, International Monetary Fund.
    • Handle: RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2002/123
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=15875
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Claudia Goldin, 1999. "Egalitarianism and the Returns to Education during the Great Transformation of American Education," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(S6), pages 65-94, December.
    2. Goldin, Claudia, 1992. "Understanding the Gender Gap: An Economic History of American Women," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195072709.
    3. Johansen, Soren & Juselius, Katarina, 1990. "Maximum Likelihood Estimation and Inference on Cointegration--With Applications to the Demand for Money," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 52(2), pages 169-210, May.
    4. George J. Borjas, 2021. "Ethnic Capital And Intergenerational Mobility," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Foundational Essays in Immigration Economics, chapter 6, pages 107-134, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    5. Williamson, Jeffrey G., 1974. "Migration to the new world: Long term influences and impact," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 11(4), pages 357-389.
    6. Eric A. Hanushek & Dongwook Kim, 1995. "Schooling, Labor Force Quality, and Economic Growth," NBER Working Papers 5399, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Douglas Staiger & James H. Stock, 1997. "Instrumental Variables Regression with Weak Instruments," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(3), pages 557-586, May.
    8. Paul Krugman, 1991. "History versus Expectations," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(2), pages 651-667.
    9. Claudia Goldin & Hugh Rockoff, 1992. "Strategic Factors in Nineteenth Century American Economic History: A Volume to Honor Robert W. Fogel," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number gold92-1, February.
    10. Daron Acemoglu, 2002. "Directed Technical Change," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 69(4), pages 781-809.
    11. Hendry, David F, 1988. "The Encompassing Implications of Feedback versus Feedforward Mechanisms in Econometrics," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 40(1), pages 132-149, March.
    12. Robert H. Topel, 1997. "Factor Proportions and Relative Wages: The Supply-Side Determinants of Wage Inequality," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(2), pages 55-74, Spring.
    13. Robert E. Gallman & John Joseph Wallis, 1992. "American Economic Growth and Standards of Living before the Civil War," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number gall92-1, February.
    14. Landes, William M. & Solmon, Lewis C., 1972. "Compulsory Schooling Legislation: An Economic Analysis of Law and Social Change in the Nineteenth Century," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 32(1), pages 54-91, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Ricardo Da Costa Nunes & Selene Peres Peres Nunes, 2004. "O papel dos Fundos de Participação dos Estados - FPE na convergência da renda per capita dos estados brasileiros," Revista de Economía y Estadística, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas, Instituto de Economía y Finanzas, vol. 42(2), pages 89-103, Diciembre.
    2. Wido Geis, 2009. "Does Educational Choice Erode the Immigration Surplus?," ifo Working Paper Series 80, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    3. Yui Suzuki & Yukari Suzuki, 2016. "Interprovincial Migration and Human Capital Formation in China," Asian Economic Journal, East Asian Economic Association, vol. 30(2), pages 171-195, June.
    4. Jeffrey G. Williamson, 2006. "Inequality and schooling responses to globalization forces: lessons from history," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, pages 225-248.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Robert A. Margo, 2000. "The History of Wage Inequality in America, 1920 to 1970," Macroeconomics 0004035, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Marina Adshade, 2012. "Female labour force participation in an era of organizational and technological change," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 45(3), pages 1188-1219, August.
    3. Robert A. Margo, 1999. "The History of Wage Inequality in America, 1820 to 1970," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_286, Levy Economics Institute.
    4. Chiswick, Barry R. & Robinson, RaeAnn Halenda, 2021. "Women at work in the United States since 1860: An analysis of unreported family workers," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    5. Komlos, John, 2012. "A Three-Decade “Kuhnian” History of the Antebellum Puzzle: Explaining the shrinking of the US population at the onset of modern economic growth," Discussion Papers in Economics 12758, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    6. Andrés Rodríguez-Pose & Viola von Berlepsch, 2012. "When migrants rule: the legacy of mass migration on economic development in the US," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 1216, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Aug 2012.
    7. Steven Ruggles, 2015. "Patriarchy, Power, and Pay: The Transformation of American Families, 1800–2015," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 52(6), pages 1797-1823, December.
    8. Chad Turner & Robert Tamura & Sean Mulholland & Scott Baier, 2007. "Education and income of the states of the United States: 1840–2000," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 12(2), pages 101-158, June.
    9. Ericsson, Neil R & Hendry, David F & Mizon, Grayham E, 1998. "Exogeneity, Cointegration, and Economic Policy Analysis," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 16(4), pages 370-387, October.
    10. Yoshiaki Azuma & Herschel I. Grossman, 2003. "Educational Inequality," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 17(3), pages 317-335, September.
    11. Bozzano, Monica, 2017. "On the historical roots of women's empowerment across Italian provinces: religion or family culture?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 24-46.
    12. Ammermueller, Andreas & Kuckulenz, Anja & Zwick, Thomas, 2009. "Aggregate unemployment decreases individual returns to education," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 217-226, April.
    13. Lutz Hendricks, 2004. "Why Does Educational Attainment Differ Across U.S. States?," CESifo Working Paper Series 1335, CESifo.
    14. Antràs Pol, 2004. "Is the U.S. Aggregate Production Function Cobb-Douglas? New Estimates of the Elasticity of Substitution," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 4(1), pages 1-36, April.
    15. Marco Manacorda, 2006. "Child Labor and the Labor Supply of Other Household Members: Evidence from 1920 America," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1788-1801, December.
    16. Adriana Lleras-Muney, 2005. "The Relationship Between Education and Adult Mortality in the United States," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(1), pages 189-221.
    17. Nico Voigtlaender, 2009. "Many Sectors Meet More Skills: Intersectoral Linkages and the Skill Bias of Technology," 2009 Meeting Papers 1136, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    18. Ericsson, Neil R., 1992. "Cointegration, exogeneity, and policy analysis: An overview," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 251-280, June.
    19. Sukkoo Kim, 2007. "Immigration, Industrial Revolution and Urban Growth in the United States, 1820-1920: Factor Endowments, Technology and Geography," NBER Working Papers 12900, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Tsai, Wehn-Jyuan & Liu, Jin-Tan & Chou, Shin-Yi & Thornton, Robert, 2009. "Does educational expansion encourage female workforce participation? A study of the 1968 reform in Taiwan," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 28(6), pages 750-758, December.

    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:imf:imfwpa:2002/123. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Akshay Modi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/imfffus.html .

    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.