Escaping the Holocaust: human and health capital of refugees to the US, 1940-42

Matthias Blum and Claudia Rei ()

VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change from Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association

Abstract: The large-scale persecution of Jews during World War II generated massive refugee movements. Using data from 20,441 predominantly Jewish passengers from 19 countries traveling from Lisbon to New York between 1940 and 1942, we analyze the last wave of refugees escaping the Holocaust and verify the validity of height as a proxy for human and health capital. We further show this episode of European migration displays wellknown features of migrant self-selection: early migrants were taller than late migrants; a large migrant stock reduces migrant selectivity; and economic barriers to migration apply. Our Öndings show that Europe experienced substantial losses in human and health capital while the US beneÖtted from the immigration of European refugees.

JEL-codes: F22 J24 N34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea, nep-his, nep-hrm and nep-mig
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:vfsc16:145483

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