Golden Flight: International Migration and the Gold Standard.

This paper offers a simple inductive study of national responses to the 1870s grain shock to examine the link between European emigration and the gold standard. The study draws on three distinct approaches: an influential (1951) article by Charles Kindleberger, the literature on Optimum Currency Areas, and neo-Ricardian trade theory. These three approaches generate explicit expectations about the relationship between a significant asymmetric shock and national emigration responses. While the paper does trace a general pattern that links high emigration, labor-abundant and liberal states, there is little evidence to suggest that these states (or any others) used emigration as a means for adjusting to specific asymmetric shocks. The paper concludes with some reflection on the parallels between historical and contemporary developments in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]