Escaping Local Risk by Entering Indentureship: Evidence from Nineteenth-Century Indian Migration

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: University of Richmond
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0507
• DOI: 10.1017/S002205071900007X
• 发表日期: 2019
• 页码: 447-476
• 关键词: self-selection; MARKETS; IMPACT

摘要

Of the millions of Indians who migrated internationally in the long nineteenth century, over one million went as indentured servants in a massive South-South migration. I test how price volatility in origin markets in India affected out-migration under indentureship contracts from 1873-1916 to four major destinations around the world. Using new, unique district-level flows calculated from roughly 250,000 individual records, I show that indentureship take-up is consistent with migrating to escape local price volatility.