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Title: Essays on Transportation and Housing in the Age of Mass Migration
Citation Type: Dissertation/Thesis
Publication Year: 2023
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Abstract: Between the late 19th and early 20th centuries, millions of immigrants arrived in the United States seeking a better life. These newcomers brought with them diverse cultures, traditions, and languages, and contributed to the growth and development of the American economy. At the same time, migrants’ pathways were influenced by the transportation and housing infrastructure they encountered along the way. This dissertation considers migrants’ economic contributions and outcomes from the perspective of housing and transportation. The first chapter investigates the impact of housing regulation on the health and economic outcomes of mostly immigrant residents. I exploit variation arising from the Tenement House Act of 1901, which imposed minimum housing standards on new construction in New York City, to show that legislation improved children’s health and changed neighborhood composition. Although lower income households in treated neighborhoods were more often displaced relative to their higher income counterparts, tenement legislation is nonetheless responsible for two additional years of life in treated children who stayed. The second chapter examines the impact of the transition to steamships on immigrant destination choices and the resulting effects on innovative activity in the United States. Since sea surface winds between origin and destination were a determining factor in travel time by sail, the reduction in travel time when transitioning from sail to steam depends on exogenous wind patterns (Pascali 2017). Using newly transcribed data on international migrations from 1830 to 1880, I exploit the disproportionate decrease in between-country travel times to show that a one percent decrease in travel time increases the number of migrants by two percent. I find evidence that steamship induced migrants increased county-level innovation such that a one percentile increase in immigrant share among counties led to 0.49 more patents. This dissertation sheds new light on the experiences of immigrants during this pivotal period in American history, offering insights into the ways in which regulation and technology influenced the lives of those who sought a better future in the United States.
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Authors: Shen, Qingyang
Institution: University of Toronto
Department: Department of Economics
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Pages: 1-159
Data Collections: IPUMS USA - Ancestry Full Count Data
Topics: Housing and Segregation, Migration and Immigration
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