How Open Borders Died in Five Countries

During the last half of the 19th century , many countries competed to attract immigrants.  All of them eventually reversed course, but how exactly did this reversal unfold?  In “Immigration Policy Prior to the 1930s” (Population and Development Review, 1998), Ashley Timmer and Jeffrey Williams show what happened to immigration policy in the U.S., Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Australia, and the United Kingdom from 1860 to 1930.

Timmer and Williams begin by proposing a policy coding system.  Quic...