Italians in the Americas

Santiago Pérez Assistant Professor, Economics

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Abstract

Italians were the largest contributors to the rise in Southern European immigration that took place at the turn of the 20th century in the US. This rise led to a wave of anti-immigrant sentiments that concluded with the US ending its open door policy for European immigrants through the imposition of country of origin quotas. In this paper, I compare the economic performance of Italians in Argentina and the US, the two largest destination countries during the age of mass migration. I construct data linking Italians from their arrival to the Americas to censuses of population, which enables me to compare Italians from similar regional origins and with similar pre-migration characteristics in both countries. First- and second-generation Italians had better economic outcomes in Argentina than in the US. Observable pre-migration characteristics played a minor role in explaining these differences.