In the words of Hovde (1934): "[With emigration] it became possible to build up very effective organizations capable of enforcing respect for higher demands in the matters of wages, hours, conditions of work and living....
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Emigration may, therefore, confidently be viewed as one of the reasons for the growing radicalism of the Scandinavian labor movement."
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Elites also appear to have changed policies to favor ordinary citizens. Expenditures on poverty relief are greater in places with more emigration, and institutions are more inclusive.
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So *why* would emigration have these effects? This is hard to pin down, but we like Hovde's suggestion: "Labor threatened to be drained away, wages for those who remained tended to rise, and labor was placed in a strong bargaining position."
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In other words, people who were connected to the US had good outside options. They could easily move and find a better paying job. It thus made sense to organize and channel that bargaining power into real results at home, even without moving.
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(We discuss many other possibilities in the paper!)
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Finally, how generalizable are these results? Context will likely matter a lot. Sweden already had fairly inclusive institutions. Maybe elites elsewhere would have cracked down hard instead of allowing labor to organize.
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But it is still cool that among OECD countries *today*, those that had more US emigration tend to have a greater union density.pic.twitter.com/IgFfyjW5In
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Post script: we are very lucky to have gotten accepted at the JPE. The process was tough (5 referees) but fair and fast. We were taken seriously despite being junior and at relatively small institutions. The editor will always have a place in our hearts

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Here's Erik's actual handle:
@erik_prawitz And a link to the paper seems appropriate as well:https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/y4wgm/ …4 replies 2 retweets 19 likesShow this thread
Did you look at who emigrated and who stayed? Could be selection effects.
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