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 cultivation 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 predictions of the model are tested through quasi-experimental methods which use the exogenous variation in sugar cultivation across areas to estimate the effect of interest. Results show that protectionism reduced the relative incentive to migrate away from sugar-producing areas.

中文翻译：

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甜蜜的家：糖保护主义对意大利移民的影响，1876-1913

保护主义政策通常会在区域层面产生相关影响。本文分析了糖进口关税对 19 世纪意大利移民的影响。由于气候原因和土壤性质，甜菜的种植和加工在地理上较为集中。我们的理论模型说明了有利于当地生产者的关税如何影响居民向国外迁移的动机。使用一组新的历史数据，通过准实验方法测试模型的预测，该方法使用跨地区糖种植的外源变化来估计感兴趣的影响。结果表明，保护主义降低了从糖产区迁移的相对动机。