Home Sweet Home: the Effect of Sugar Protectionism on Emigration in Italy, 1876-1913

Protectionist policies have often relevant effects at the regional level. This paper analyzes the impact of sugar import duties on emigration in nineteenth century Italy. Both for climatic reasons and the nature of the soil, the cul- tivation and processing of sugar beets was geographically concentrated. Our theoretical model illustrates how a tariff that favours local producers may affect residents' incentives to migrate abroad. Using a new set historical data, the pre- dictions of the model are tested through quasi-experimental methods which use the exogenous variation in sugar culti- vation across areas to estimate the effect of interest. Results show that protectionism reduced the relative incen- tive to migrate away from sugar-producing areas.