Why Ireland Emigrated: A Positive Theory of Factor Flows.

Why did labor flow from Ireland to Britain in the nineteenth century when capital could have moved in the opposite direction? This paper addresses this question in a general two-country trade theoretic framework, linking it with the contemporary debate about the relative quality of emigrants and those who stayed behind. Dividing the population into shirkers and nonshirkers, it can be shown (given certain assumptions) that all nonshirkers migrate to the capital abundant country and that capital may flow in the same direction as labor. A switch from cottage industry to the factory system may have initiated such factor flows. Copyright 1992 by Royal Economic Society.