Transatlantic migration refers to the movement of people across the Atlantic Ocean in order to settle on the continents of North and South America.
Economic theory sought to explain, however, if immigrants were positively or negatively selected from the sending pool into the United States.
Ingrid Semmingsen in her book, Norway to America: a History of the Migration, wrote “Many have asked if it was the more capable, the more enterprising and energetic persons who left, or if it was those who fell behind in the struggle for bread, the losers, the maladjusted, and the deviant” in reference to the composition of those who migrated into the United States.
The Roy Model of comparative advantage suggests that where there are higher wages for skilled workers in one location, the most able will migrate to that country and earn that income.
Also, 2.5 million Asians migrated to the Americas, mostly to the Caribbean (where they worked as indentured servants in plantations) and some, notably the Japanese, to Brazil and the USA.