Migration, ethnic concentration and international trade growth: The case of Italians in Australia

Governments and advocates tend to argue that immigration promotes trade between sending and host countries to the benefit of both. The scholarly literature is rather more circumspect. In the present study the authors find that migrants from Italy have made a major contribution to Australia's post- WWII immigration intake, particularly in the 1950s and 1960s. But the data on bilateral trade between the two countries suggest that, while trade has grown, immigration has had a minimal effect. Rather it appears that trade between the two countries has grown in response to general economic growth and to the exigencies of supply and demand.