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The Determinants of International Migration in Early Modern Europe: Evidence from the Maritime Sector, c. 1700–1800

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2020

Alexander Klein
Affiliation:
School of Economics, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK
Jelle van Lottum
Affiliation:
Huygens Institute for the History of the Netherlands, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Abstract

This article offers the first multivariate regression study of international migration in early modern Europe. Using unique eighteenth-century data about maritime workers, we created a data set of migration flows among European countries to examine the role of factors related to geography, population, language, the market, and chain migration in explaining the migration of these workers across countries. We show that among all factors considered in our multivariate analysis, the geographical characteristics of the destination countries, size of port towns, and past migrations are among the most robust and quantitatively the most important factors influencing cross-country migration flows.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© Social Science History Association, 2020

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