Doctoral Dissertation Research in Economics: An Economic Analysis of the Perpetual Emigrating Fund

这个项目将估计美国以预付旅费形式提供的财政援助对19世纪从不列颠群岛移民到美国西部的时间的影响。方法本研究使用永久移民基金公司（PEF）和耶稣基督后期圣徒教会（也被称为摩门教徒或后期圣徒）的记录来创建一个19世纪从英国到今天犹他州的移民样本。样本将在年龄、家庭结构和职业方面代表其他19世纪西部边疆移民。这些移民往往比同时代留在美国东部的人年龄更大，技能更好，他们也更有可能结婚，带着孩子旅行。以家庭为单位的个人记录将包括每个移民的出生年份、原籍地区、移民前职业和受洗年份，以及收到的财政援助金额（如果有的话）。对于19世纪的摩门教徒来说，洗礼不仅意味着皈依一种新的信仰，而且意味着承诺搬迁到犹他州。PEF贷款类似于希望移民的人与已经在美国的家人之间的非正式协议。在美国预付的船票是一种非正式贷款，在定居后偿还。将使用横截面和小组数据技术来确定接受财政援助是否倾向于加速移徙，换言之，缩短洗礼和移徙之间的延迟。Tobit分析将用于估计影响贷款收款的因素。本研究对现有文献有两大贡献。首先，本研究将超越一般趋势和汇总统计的讨论，以估计预付通行对个人和家庭的影响。这是可能的，因为获得经济援助的人以及他们获得了多少的异常详细的记录。第二，对后期圣徒记录的研究提供了一个独特的视角来观察19世纪移民到美国的一个有趣的子集：以家庭为单位旅行的人。这些记录可以用来检验费里在《现在的北方佬》（牛津大学出版社，1999年）中提出的假设，即大家庭倾向于搬到西部，因为他们更富有。更广泛的影响本研究涉及各种历史和现代制度，包括连锁移民，难民安置，学生贷款和小额贷款。例如，2001年以PEF为蓝本设立的永久教育基金（Perpetual Education Fund）为发展中国家的弱势个人提供学生贷款。

This project will estimate the impact of financial assistance from America, in the form of prepaid passage, on the timing of emigration in the nineteenth century from the British Isles to the Western United States.MethodsThis research uses records of the Perpetual Emigrating Fund Company (PEF) and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (also known as Mormons or Latter-day Saints) to create a sample of nineteenth century immigrants from the U.K. to present-day Utah. The sample will be representative of other nineteenth century migrants to the western frontier both in age, household structure, and occupation. These immigrants tended to be older and better skilled than their contemporaries who stayed in the eastern U.S. They were also more likely to be married and travel with children. Individual-level records, linked as households, will include information on each emigrant's birth year, region of origin, pre-emigration occupation, and year of baptism, as well as the amount of financial assistance received, if any. For Mormons in the eighteen hundreds, baptism indicated not only conversion to a new faith but also commitment to relocate to Utah. PEF loans were similar to informal agreements between people desiring to emigrate and their family members already in the U.S. Passage, prepaid in the U.S., was offered as an informal loan to be repaid after settling. Cross-sectional and panel data techniques will be used to determine whether the receipt of financial assistance tended to hasten emigration, in other words to shorten the delay between baptism and emigration. Tobit analysis will be used to estimate the factors affecting loan receipt.Intellectual MeritThis research makes two major contributions to the existing literature. One, this research will go beyond a discussion of general trends and summary statistics to estimate the effect prepaid passage had on individuals and households. This is possible because of the unusually detailed records of who received financial aid and how much they received. Two, the study of Latter-day Saint records provides a unique look at an interesting subset of nineteenth century immigrants to the U.S.: people traveling as families. The records can beused to test the hypothesis proposed by Ferrie in Yankees Now (Oxford University Press, 1999) that larger families tended to move west because they were wealthier. Broader ImpactsThis research is related to a variety of historical and modern institutions, including chain migration, refugee resettlement, student loans, and micro-lending. For example, the Perpetual Education Fund, modeled after the PEF, was established in 2001 to provide student loans for disadvantaged individuals in developing countries.