Global Migration and the World Economy: Two Centuries of Policy and Performance, by Timothy J. Hatton and Jeffrey G. Wil
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father’s income and total fertility rate for the period 1940–1977 [p. 210]. Families with low incomes in the 1960s and 1970s (compared to their parents’ incomes) had higher female labor force participation, to supplement family income, along with lower fertility. Easterlin notes that his view is ‘‘highly simplified’’ and does not account for the general increase in female labor force participation during the post-war period as a whole [pp. 213–4, 217–8]. He places less emphasis on dramatic improvements in birth control technology, such as ‘‘the pill,’’ because awareness of alternative techniques was widespread during World War II and the Korean War. Along similar lines, Easterlin explains the growth of business majors in the US by the relative incomes and attitudes of the parents of undergraduates, rather than by the prospective incomes of business majors. This emphasis on the preferences of parents is supported by survey data and the lack of support from trends in the relative incomes of alternative career choices. Easterlin continuously challenges the conventional wisdom, taking a long-term, interdisciplinary view, and criticizing the values and methodology of mainstream economics. His techniques are largely descriptive. He rarely uses multivariate regressions or other advanced statistical techniques. His citation of the literature is thorough and comprehensive in most cases. One particular omission concerns alternative explanations of fertility trends and female labor force participation, which ignores the works of Folbre [1994] and Goldin [1990]. Nonetheless, his work is compatible with behavioral, institutional, as well as feminist economics. Overall, this book provides a bridge between the early economic history and more recent historical institutional approaches in the economics profession. Easterlin is both a student of, and a voice for, intergenerational connections.
References Epstein, H. 2007. Death by the Numbers. New York Review of Books, 54(11), June 28, 41–43. Folbre, N. 1994. Who Pays for the Kids? Gender and the Structures of Constraint. New York: Routledge. Goldin, C. 1990. Understanding the Gender Gap: An Economic History of American Women. Oxford: Oxford University Press. North, D. 1990. Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Eastern Economic Journal (2008) 34, 274–276. doi:10.1057/palgrave.eej.9050025
Global Migration and the World Economy: Two Centuries of Policy and Performance. By Timothy J. Hatton and Jeffrey G. Williamson. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2005. 448pp., $50.00. ISBN: 0-262-08342-6. Lisa Mohanty CUNY-College of Staten Island
There are three central themes of this book. First, the authors examine the forces that drive mass migration for two different waves of migrants. Second, they explore the economic and social consequences of global migration for both the sending and Eastern Economic Journal 2008 34
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receiving countries. Finally, the book concludes with how an historical perspective on m
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