Research Seminar Series on “Global Challenges” – Hillel Rapoport (Paris School of Economics and Université of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne), 17th January 2024 at 12:30 p.m. (CET)

Research Seminar Series on “Global Challenges”

Hillel Rapoport (Paris School of Economics and Université of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne) on: “From Paris with Love: Cultural Remittances and Modern Fertility” (with Mickael Melki, Enrico Spolaore and Romain Wacziarg), jointly organised by Centro Studi Luca d’Agliano, BAFFI and the Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods (University of Milan) in collaboration with the Dipartimento di Economia, Metodi Quantitativi e Strategie di Impresa (Università Milano Bicocca), the Dipartimento di Ingegneria Gestionale (Politecnico di Milano) and the Department of Economics of the University of Insubria.

The seminar will be held on Wednesday, 17th January 2024 at 12:30 p.m. (CET) – not on Thursday at 12.15 as usual – in a hybrid format:

– DEMM seminar room, Via Conservatorio 7, 2nd floor.
– Via Zoom. Please register by email to centro.dagliano@unimi.it

Abstract:

We argue that migrants played a significant role in the diffusion of the demographic transition from France to the rest of Europe in the late 19th century. Employing novel data on French immigration from other European regions from 1850 to 1930, we find that higher immigration to France translated into lower fertility in the region of origin after a few decades – both in crossregion regressions for various periods, and in a panel setting with region fixed-effects. These results are robust to the inclusion of a variety of controls, and across multiple specifications. We also find that immigrants who themselves became French citizens achieved lower fertility, particularly those who moved to French regions with the lowest fertility levels. We interpret these findings in terms of cultural remittances, consistent with insights from a theoretical framework where migrants act as vectors of cultural diffusion, spreading new information, social norms and preferences pertaining to modern fertility to their regions of origin.