Economy and Immigration

Abstract

The influences of the economic situation on migratory movements do not constitute, properly speaking, an economic phenomenon. The essential aspect of the phenomenon is the demographic one, that of the displacement of populations. These can be attracted or repelled by non-economic forces, political ones, for example. Moreover, the decision to emigrate is the result of so complex a series of influences that it is difficult to isolate precisely the influence exercised of the economic level of the receiving country. We may add to that the fact that news concerning this country comes to them refracted by various milieux. Thus the reactions of migratory currents on economic changes in the country for which they leave are less approachable by the rigorous methods of economic analysis. They are rich in human elements, subject to a certain determinism if examined all together, a determinism, however, less precise than that of economic facts. They lend themselves less readily to an examination of deductive nature. A definitive synthesis here could only be made by an inductive process, beginning from a considerable number of monographs on the nature of migratory movements and their reactions on economic changes¹.