Curriculum Vitae

The Dynamics of Mass Migration: The Economics of the Jewish Exodus from the Pale of Settlement in Tsarist Russia

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Abstract: During the period 1881-1914, approximately 1.5 million Jews immigrated to the U.S. from the Pale of Settlement in the Russian Empire. The data generated by this event can help explain the puzzling pattern of international mass migration shown in the literature: while time-series evidence shows that levels of migration were very volatile and highly sensitive to business-cycle fluctuations, there is little cross-sectional evidence for an effect of income on migration - poorer countries did not always send more emigrants than wealthier countries. I explain this puzzle by using a newly constructed and unique data set, linking Ellis Island individual immigration records of hundreds of thousands of Russian Jews to information from the 1897 Russian census on their towns and districts of origin. I document the evolution of their migration networks using data on thousands of hometown-based associations, and map the migrants’ exposure to hundreds of cases of local anti-Jewish riots during the 1903-1906 wave of pogroms. Using an econometric dynamic model of discrete choice with serially-correlated unobserved heterogeneity and an underlying networks diffusion process, I estimate the effects of long-run income differences between the sending and the receiving countries and of short-term income shocks on the magnitude of migration flows. I find that the strong reaction of migration flows to business cycles can be largely attributed to individuals optimally timing their migration - temporary shocks to migration were offset in the long run by delayed migration. I provide evidence for the view that the lack of systematic negative cross-sectional correlation between income levels and emigration is a result of a European spatial diffusion process and a gradual build-up of migration networks. Finally, I test the claim that persecution and violence played a role in inducing the Jewish migration from Russia.

References:

Prof. Joel Mokyr (Committee Chair)
Prof. Igal Hendel
Prof. Joseph Ferrie