British Emigration and Overseas Investment,1870-1914.

The article examines the impact of British overseas investment and emigration during 1870-1914 on its economy. In the international market for factors there were no legal or institutional obstacles to mobility. Here here author explores the possibility of a link between international factor flows and factor price differentials. The impact of other determinants of British overseas investment and emigration with the aid of first simple and then multiple linear regression analysis, have also been examined. The first stage of the investigation involved testing what may be called a naive neo-classical model in which the flow of capital from Britain to a given country of destination is regarded as a function of the returns to capital in the two areas. The migration results are somewhat mixed between countries. Investment was an important explanation of variations in British emigration to Australia and Canada. The change-in-population results for Australia, Canada, and New Zealand are not surprising because immigration was so important in the total population change of these countries.