How important was international immigration for the U.S. and its demography during the nineteenth century? This paper investigates, quantitatively, its effect on the westward movement of population and the regional and secular changes in fertility. Beside immigration, two alternative forces are considered: technological progress and the land policy (the Homestead Act). An optimal growth model with endogenous fertility and migration is calibrated, and counterfactual experiments reveal that the main driving forces were productivity growth and the declining cost of transportation. International immigration played a lesser role. (Copyright: Elsevier)
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
file. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Publisher Info
Article provided by Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics in its journal Review of Economic Dynamics.
Volume (Year): 11 (2008) Issue (Month): 2 (April) Pages: 283-301 Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML,
plain text,
BibTeX,
RIS (EndNote),
ReDIF
Find related papers by JEL classification: E1 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics O1 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Jeremy Greenwood & Ananth Seshadri, 2002.
"The US Demographic Transition,"
RCER Working Papers
487, University of Rochester - Center for Economic Research (RCER).
[Downloadable!]
Other versions: