Emigration and Long-Run Economic Development: Evidence from the Italian Mass Migration

Nicola Fontana (), Marco Manacorda (), Gianluca Russo () and Marco Tabellini ()
Additional contact information
Nicola Fontana: Department of Economics, Trinity College Dublin
Marco Manacorda: School of Economics and Finance, Queen Mary University of London
Gianluca Russo: CUNEF University
Marco Tabellini: Business, Government, and International Economy unit, Harvard Business School

No tep1125, Economic Papers from Trinity College Dublin, Economics Department

Abstract: In this paper, we study the long-run effects of emigration on economic development. We consider the case of historical mass migration from Italy between 1880 and 1920, when more than 10 million people left the country. We exploit variation in access to information about opportunities abroad to derive an instrument for outmigration at the municipality level. We find that areas with higher historical emigration are poorer, less educated, and less densely populated at the turn of the 21st century. These effects emerged early and persisted, as emigration led to sustained depopulation that, combined with declining fertility and lower human capital investment, constrained the structural transformation from agriculture to manufacturing and services.

Keywords: Emigration; long-run economic development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 N33 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 69 pages
Date: 2025-10
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tcd:tcduee:tep1125

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