Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/207533 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 12709
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
This paper studies how birth town migration networks affected long-run location decisions during historical U.S. migration episodes. We develop a new method to estimate the strength of migration networks for each receiving and sending location. Our estimates imply that when one randomly chosen African American moved from a Southern birth town to a destination county, then 1.9 additional black migrants made the same move on average. For white migrants from the Great Plains, the average is only 0.4. Networks were particularly important in connecting black migrants with attractive employment opportunities and played a larger role in less costly moves.
Subjects: 
migration networks
location decisions
social interactions
Great Migration
JEL: 
J61
N32
O15
R23
Z13
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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