TY  - BOOK
AU  - Spitzer,Yannay
AU  - Zimran,Ariell
ED  - National Bureau of Economic Research.
TI  - Like an Ink Blot on Paper: Testing the Diffusion Hypothesis of Mass Migration, Italy 1876-1920 
T2  - NBER working paper series
PY  - 2023///
CY  - Cambridge, Mass.
PB  - National Bureau of Economic Research
KW  - International Migration
KW  - jelc
KW  - Geographic Labor Mobility • Immigrant Workers
KW  - Europe: Pre-1913
KW  - Europe: 1913-
N1  - January 2023; Hardcopy version available to institutional subscribers
N2  - Why were the poorer countries of the European periphery latecomers to the Age of Mass Migration? We test the diffusion hypothesis, which argues that mass emigration was delayed because it was primarily governed by a gradual process of spatial diffusion of migration networks. We propose a model of migration within a spatial network to formalize this hypothesis and to derive its testable predictions. Focusing on post-unification Italy, we construct a comprehensive municipality- and district-level panel of emigration data over four decades, and use it to show that the testable predictions of the diffusion hypothesis are validated by the data. The emerging picture is that Italian mass migration began in a few separate epicenters from which it expanded over time in an orderly pattern of spatial expansion, and that the epidemiological characteristics of this expansion match those underlying our model. These findings strongly support the diffusion hypothesis, and call for a revision of our understanding of one of the most important features of the Age of Mass Migration--the delayed migration puzzle
UR  - https://www.nber.org/papers/w30847
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.3386/w30847
ER  -