Globalizing Southeastern Europe: The Economic Causes and Consequences of Overseas Emigration up until 1914.

This article argues that labor emigration was central to the globalization of Southeastern Europe at the end of the nineteenth century. The region’s societies became part of a transatlantic labor market, while emigration had significant economic and social effects on them. The fact that Southeastern Europe, together with Eastern and Southern Europe, became the prime regions of origin of immigrants to the United States cannot be explained without considering economic causes. On the one hand these were structural, such as the perennial lack of land, compounded by rapid population growth; on the other hand, contingent events such as the Phylloxera epidemic also played an important role. The return orientation of many an emigrant from Southeastern Europe as well as the economic effects of their money transfers are important factors explaining the persistence of large-scale emigration until 1914. The article, thus, stresses the need for explanatory models that account for the complexity of emigration as a social process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]