Abstract
This article offers an explanation for the convergence of fertility rates across French départements in the second half of the 19th century that emphasises the diffusion of information through internal migration. It tests how migration affected fertility by building a decennial bilateral migration matrix between French départements for 1861-911. The identification strategy uses exogenous variation in transportation costs resulting from the construction of railways. The results suggest that the convergence towards low birth rates can be explained by the diffusion of cultural and economic information pertaining to low-fertility behaviour by migrants, especially by migrants to and from Paris.
| Original language | American English |
|---|---|
| Article number | ecoj.12623 |
| Pages (from-to) | 1618-1692 |
| Number of pages | 75 |
| Journal | Economic Journal |
| Volume | 129 |
| Issue number | 620 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2019 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We thank Hans-Joachim Voth (the editor), four anonymous referees, Ran Abramitzky, Toman Barsbai, Michel Beine, Dan Ben-Moshe, Simone Bertoli, Pedro Dal Bo, Frédéric Docquier, Oded Galor, Dror Goldberg, Philippe Fargues, Marc Klemp, Gustavo De Santis, Massimo Livi-Bacci, Stelios Michalopoulos, Isabelle Sin, Yannay Spitzer, Andreas Steinmayr, Chinmay Tumbe, David Weil and Melanie Meng Xue for helpful comments and suggestions. We also thank conference participants at ASREC, EHA, NEUDC and EHS meetings, as well as seminar participants at Universitat de Barcelona, Brown University, University of Cardiff, University of Kent, Paris-Dauphine, Paris-Créteil, Paris School of Economics, EUI, Sciences Lyon and University of Southern Denmark for their comments. We thank Marie-Noëlle Polino for her help in finding prices for passenger travel in the 19th century, Jérôme Bourdieu for providing us with the TRA data set as well as Marion Romo and Hadaoui Fatima Zahra for their research assistance. Part of this study was written while Raphaël Franck was Marie Curie Fellow at the Department of Economics at Brown University under funding from the People Programme (Marie Curie Actions) of the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP 2007-13) under REA grant agreement PIOF-GA-2012-327760 (TCDOFT). Hillel Rapoport acknowledges support from CEPREMAP and from the Labex OSE Research Fund. Earlier drafts of this study were circulated as ‘The Cultural Diffusion of the Fertility Transition: Evidence from Internal Migration in 19th Century France’. The usual disclaimer applies.
Funding Information:
We thank Hans-Joachim Voth (the editor), four anonymous referees, Ran Abramitzky, Toman Barsbai, Michel Beine, Dan Ben-Moshe, Simone Bertoli, Pedro Dal Bo, Fr?d?ric Docquier, Oded Galor, Dror Goldberg, Philippe Fargues, Marc Klemp, Gustavo De Santis, Massimo Livi-Bacci, Stelios Michalopoulos, Isabelle Sin, Yannay Spitzer, Andreas Steinmayr, Chinmay Tumbe, David Weil and Melanie Meng Xue for helpful comments and suggestions. We also thank conference participants at ASREC, EHA, NEUDC and EHS meetings, as well as seminar participants at Universitat de Barcelona, Brown University, University of Cardiff, University of Kent, Paris-Dauphine, Paris-Cr?teil, Paris School of Economics, EUI, Sciences Lyon and University of Southern Denmark for their comments. We thank Marie-No?lle Polino for her help in finding prices for passenger travel in the 19th century, J?r?me Bourdieu for providing us with the TRA data set as well as Marion Romo and Hadaoui Fatima Zahra for their research assistance. Part of this study was written while Rapha?l Franck was Marie Curie Fellow at the Department of Economics at Brown University under funding from the People Programme (Marie Curie Actions) of the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP 2007-13) under REA grant agreement PIOF-GA-2012-327760 (TCDOFT). Hillel Rapoport acknowledges support from CEPREMAP and from the Labex OSE Research Fund. Earlier drafts of this study were circulated as 'The Cultural Diffusion of the Fertility Transition: Evidence from Internal Migration in 19th Century France'. The usual disclaimer applies.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Royal Economic Society. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Economic Society.