 Immigration quotas and immigrant selectionCatherine G. Massey Explorations in Economic History, 2016, vol. 60, issue C, 21-40 Abstract: Several factors influenced the composition of migrants in the early 20th century, including World War I, the Literacy Act of 1917, and the implementation of strict immigration quotas. This paper examines whether the United States' first immigration quota, established under the Emergency Immigration Act of 1921, affected migrant selection. The Emergency Immigration Act of 1921 severely capped the number of admittable migrants by nationality. Canadian migrants, or any migrants who resided in Canada for five consecutive years, were unrestricted by the quota and could freely migrate to the U.S. Using transcribed ship records from states bordering Canada (specifically New York, Alaska, and Washington), I compare the skills of restricted migrants to the skills of unrestricted Canadian migrants, before and after establishment of the 1921 quota. Difference-in-differences estimates indicate that the quota resulted in migrants of higher skill. Keywords: Immigration; Migrant selection; Immigration quotas (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:exehis:v:60:y:2016:i:c:p:21-40 DOI: 10.1016/j.eeh.2015.11.001 Access Statistics for this article Explorations in Economic History is currently edited by R.H. Steckel More articles in Explorations in Economic History from Elsevier |
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