Ariell Zimran
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International Migration Responses to Modern Europe's Most Destructive Earthquake: Messina and Reggio Calabria, 1908
2024
with Yannay Spitzer and Gaspare Tortorici
Journal of Economic History, Forthcoming
Revised version of NBER Working Paper 27506 and CEPR Discussion Paper 15008

The Messina-Reggio Calabria Earthquake (1908) was one of the most devastating natural disasters in modern European history. It occurred when overseas mass emigration from southern Italy was at its peak and international borders were open, making emigration a readily available option for relief. We study the effects of this disaster on international migration. We find that there was no large positive impact on emigration on average. There were, however, heterogeneous responses, with a more positive effect where agricultural day laborers comprised a larger share of the labor force, suggesting that attachment to the land limited an emigration response.