Outmigration and Long-Run Economic Development: Evidence from the Italian Mass Migration

August 2025, Paper: "In this paper, we study the long run effects of emigration on economic development. We consider the case of historical mass migration from Italy between 1890 and 1920, when more than 10 million people left the country. We exploit variation in access to information about opportunities abroad to derive an instrument for outmigration at the municipality level. We find that areas with higher historical emigration are poorer, less educated, and less densely populated at the turn of the 21st century. These effects emerged early and persisted, as emigration led to sustained depopulation that, combined with declining fertility and lower human capital investment, constrained the structural transformation from agriculture to manufacturing and services."