Why Ireland Emigrated: A Positive Theory of Factor Flows

Kevin O'Rourke

Oxford Economic Papers, 1992, vol. 44, issue 2, 322-40

Abstract: Why did labor flow from Ireland to Britain in the nineteenth century when capital could have moved in the opposite direction? This paper addresses this question in a general two-country trade theoretic framework, linking it with the contemporary debate about the relative quality of emigrants and those who stayed behind. Dividing the population into shirkers and nonshirkers, it can be shown (given certain assumptions) that all nonshirkers migrate to the capital abundant country and that capital may flow in the same direction as labor. A switch from cottage industry to the factory system may have initiated such factor flows. Copyright 1992 by Royal Economic Society.

Date: 1992
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0030-7653%2819920 ... 0.CO%3B2-K&origin=bc full text (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to JSTOR subscribers. See http://www.jstor.org for details.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:oxecpp:v:44:y:1992:i:2:p:322-40

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Oxford Economic Papers is currently edited by James Forder and Francis J. Teal

More articles in Oxford Economic Papers from Oxford University Press Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().