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Home Sweet Home: the Effect of Sugar Protectionism on Emigration in Italy, 1876‐1913
Author(s) -
Ciccarelli Carlo,
Dalmazzo Alberto,
Vuri Daniela
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
papers in regional science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.937
H-Index - 64
eISSN - 1435-5957
pISSN - 1056-8190
DOI - 10.1111/pirs.12604
Subject(s) - protectionism , emigration , incentive , tariff , sugar , economics , agriculture , agricultural economics , international economics , geography , market economy , biology , food science , archaeology
Protectionist policies have often relevant effects at the regional level. This paper analyzes the impact of sugar import duties on emigration in nineteenth century Italy. Both for climatic reasons and the nature of the soil, the cultivation and processing of sugar beets was geographically concentrated. Our theoretical model illustrates how a tariff that favours local producers may affect residents' incentives to migrate abroad. Using a new set historical data, the predictions of the model are tested through quasi‐experimental methods which use the exogenous variation in sugar cultivation across areas to estimate the effect of interest. Results show that protectionism reduced the relative incentive to migrate away from sugar‐producing areas.