SKILL SELECTIVITY IN TRANSATLANTIC MIGRATION: THE CASE OF CANARY ISLANDERS IN CUBA* DÁCIL JUIF University of Wageningena ABSTRACT The skill composition of European migrants to the New World and their contribution to the human capital and institutional formation in destination countries are popular topics in economic history. This study assesses the skill composition of 19th century transatlantic migrants to Cuba. It finds that nearly half of the European immigrants originate from the Spanish province of the Canary Islands, which displays the lowest literacy and numeracy rates of Spain. Even within this province, those who left belonged to the least skilled section of the population. By promoting the influx of a cheap and poorly educated white workforce that replaced African slaves on their sugar estates, large landowners in Cuba contributed to the perpetuation of high economic, political and social inequality. Keywords: human capital, numeracy, migration, institutions, Latin America JEL Code: N36, N33 * Received 4 August 2014. Accepted 27 January 2015. The author wishes to thank Joerg Baten, Ewout Frankema, Jop Woltjer, Rima Ghanem, Franziska Tollnek, Christina Mumme, Linda Twrdek and two anonymous referees for their valuable comments. Financial support of the Dutch Science Foundation is also gratefully acknowledged. a Department of Rural & Environmental History, Hollandseweg 1, Building 201, 6706 KN Wageningen, The Netherlands. E-mail:
[email protected]. Revista de Historia Economica, Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History 189 Vol. 33, No. 2: 189–222. doi:10.1017/S0212610915000014 © Instituto Figuerola, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, 2015. DÁCIL JUIF RESUMEN La selección educacional de los migrantes europeos al Nuevo Mundo y su contribución al capital humano y a la formación institucional en los países de destino son temas de gran interés en la historia económica.