The Determinants of Intercountry Differences in European Emigration: 1881–1900

A distinctive feature of the nineteenth-century international economy was the mass movement of people out of Europe. Between 1840 and 1914 over forty million persons permanently left Europe and settled in the New World, Asiatic Russia and Oceana. In contrast with contemporary population transfers, nineteenth-century international migration occurred within an international political framework which placed few restrictions on geographic mobility. Within this institutional context there were substantial country by country differences in the participation of European populations. This article is concerned with the secular determinants of intercountry differences in emigration.