The Manchester School Vol LX No.4 December 1992 0025-2034$2.50359-376 A POLITICAL ECONOMY OF INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION,1815-1914* by JAMES FOREMAN-PECK St.Antony's College,Oxford "Give me...your huddled masses,yearning to breathe free" I INTRODUCTION Why was Emma Lazarus's sentiment,engraved on the base of the Statue of Liberty,so much more widely embodied in policy in the nineteenth century than in recent decades?During the earlier period,the enormous inter- continental migrations that peopled Siberia,the mid-west of the United States and other territories often laid the foundations for international reconfigurations of economic and political power.These population move- ments certainly established ethnic mixes that have greatly influenced sub- sequent domestic policies,from Fiji to South Africa.Despite the magnitude of the changes,the nineteenth-century pattern of intercontinental migration left open to Europeans their principal destinations:North America,Australasia and Latin America.Equally notable was the segregated stream of Asian migrants to mines and plantations in Malaya,the Dutch East Indies,Ceylon, Mauritius and the Caribbean. The years between the World Wars marked a new phase of forced migration in Europe as a consequence of the redrawing of frontiers.Immi- gration restrictions in destinations of European migration,abandonment of indentured labour and substantial net return migration during the 1930s further distinguished this period from the nineteenth century.After 1945, north western Europe hosted immigrants from southern Europe and from current and former colonial possessions in Africa,Asia and the Caribbean. The U.S.increasingly drew in migrants,legal and illegal,from the south, especially from Mexico.All higher-income countries after two decades began to conclude that unskilled immigrants were undesirable and imposed tight restrictions.But highly-trained professionals in scarcity fields remained eli- gible,at least for temporary permits:the "brain drain"flowed faster. The present paper investigates how much a simple economic theory of .Manuscript received 27.2.91;final version received 4.12.91. tMy thoughts on this subject have been clarified by anonymous referees and by seminar and conference participants at Leeds,Oxford,Liverpool,Manchester and Santander.The Hallsworth Fellowship in Political Economy at the University of Manchester allowed me to complete the project. 359The Manchester School Vol LX No. 4 December 1992 0025-2034 $2.50 359-376 A POLITICAL ECONOMY OF INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION, 1815-1914* by JAMES FOREMAN-PECKT St. Antony’s College, Oxford “Give me.. . your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free” I INTRODUCTION Why was Emma Lazarus’s sentiment, engraved on the base of the Statue of Liberty, so much more widely embodied in policy in the nineteenth century than in recent decades? During the earlier period, the enormous inter￾continental migrations that peopled Siberia, the mid-west of the United States and other territories often laid the foundations for international reconfigurations of economic and political power. These population move￾ments certainly established ethnic mixes that have greatly influenced sub￾sequent domestic policies, from Fiji to South Africa. Despite the magnitude of the changes, the nineteenth-century pattern of intercontinental migration left open to Europeans their principal destinations: North America, Australasia and Latin America. Equally notable was the segregated stream of Asian migrants to mines and plantations in Malaya, the Dutch East Indies, Ceylon, Mauritius and the Caribbean. The years between the World Wars marked a new phase of forced migration in Europe as a consequence of the redrawing of frontiers. Immi￾gration restrictions in destinations of European migration, abandonment of indentured labour and substantial net return migration during the 1930s further distinguished this period from the nineteenth century. After 1945, north western Europe hosted immigrants from southern Europe and from current and former colonial possessions in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. The U.S. increasingly drew in migrants, legal and illegal, from the south, especially from Mexico. All higher-income countries after two decades began to conclude that unskilled immigrants were undesirable and imposed tight restrictions. But highly-trained professionals in scarcity fields remained eli￾gible, at least for temporary permits: the “brain drain” flowed faster. The present paper investigates how much a simple economic theory of * Manuscript received 27.2.91; final version received 4.12.91. t My thoughts on this subject have been clarified by anonymous referees and by seminar and conference participants at Leeds, Oxford, Liverpool, Manchester and Santander. The HaHsworth Fellowship in Political Economy at the University of Manchester allowed me to complete the project. 359