Exit, Voice, and Political Change: Evidence from Swedish Mass Migration to the United States

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Karadja, Mounir; Prawitz, Erik
• 署名单位: Uppsala University; Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-3808
• DOI: 10.1086/701682
• 发表日期: 2019
• 页码: 1864-1925
• 关键词: institutional change; Union membership; RETURN MIGRANTS; emigration; DEMOCRACY; sweden; MODEL; CONVERGENCE; remittances; INEQUALITY

摘要

We study the political effects of mass emigration to the United States in the nineteenth century using data from Sweden. To instrument for total emigration over several decades, we exploit severe local frost shocks that sparked an initial wave of emigration, interacted with within-country travel costs. Our estimates show that emigration substantially increased the local demand for political change, as measured by labor movement membership, strike participation, and voting. Emigration also led to de facto political change, increasing welfare expenditures as well as the likelihood of adopting more inclusive political institutions.