Migrant Savings and Their Paths to the Homeland in the Decades Before World War I

The work deals with the remittances of Austro-Hungarian and Slovenian emigrants in the period of mass migration from the 1890s to World War I. It presents the scope and dynamics of migrants’ money flows from abroad based on the statistics of the Ministry of Finance and expert studies. It also estimates the share of remittances of emigrants from Carniola. The second part of the article discusses the remittance systems and the losses caused by organizational inconsistencies, technical incongruences, and intentional fraud committed by various economic subjects involved in the remittance business.
Keywords: migrants’ remittances, remittance transfer system, migration policy, Austria-Hungary, Slovenia

From the 1890s until World War I, the Habsburg Monarchy was one of the leading European emigration countries. Together with Italy and Russia, it contributed the largest share of overseas emigration to the United States. In addition, Austria-Hungary had a large continental labor migration, mostly seasonal. This labor force generated an increasing influx of remittances, which became a structural part of the domestic economy. In the years before the war, this money earned abroad amounted to more than 600 million kronen per year, or 2.21% of GDP, and contributed to 20% of the balance of payments. This source of income facilitated access to international credit, the payment of debts, and the limitation of payment disturbances during financial crises. It also had a remarkable impact on savings and consumption growth.
As one of the most important emigration areas, the Slovenian ethnic territory was a recipient of remarkable remittance flows. At the peak of emigration in the years before World War I, the amount of money sent or brought by emigrants from the Slovenian ethnic territory was estimated at about 22 million kronen per year. The share of Carniola, the Austrian Crown Land with the highest emigration rate in Austria and the first contributor to overseas migration among the Slovenian lands, amounted to 14.4 million kronen per year. According to economic historians, remittances stimulated consumption, increased household savings, and improved the lives of the population. However, in the absence of infrastructure and investment programs, the “emigration economy” supplemented or replaced scarce traditional economic resources but did not contribute to the modernization and development of economic structures. This thesis needs to be tested by more detailed empirical research to better understand the broader range of uses and impacts of migrant remittances in social and economic life at the macro and micro levels.
The second part of the article provides insight into the remittance business and remittance transfer systems. It focuses on the workings of this system, which involved many different economic entities, organizational inconsistencies, technical discrepancies, fraud, and speculation that characterized money transfer practices, and the efforts of the state administration to channel migrants’ savings more securely.