FIN 239: Finance and Society: Migrant Finance
Course Outline and TimeTable - Fall 2026

Date

Module

Assignment

8/31

Module 1: Intro to Migration
World Bank. (2023) "Outlook: Changing Patterns, Needs and Risks" in World Development Report 2023: Migrants, Refugees, and Societies. World Bank. https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/wdr2023, Chapter 3.

9/14

Module 2: Intro to Financial System
Bodie, Zvi; Robert Merton and David L. Cleeton. 2009. Financial Markets and Institutions, in Financial Economics, 2nd edition, Chap. 2, Pearson Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

9/28

Module 3: Financing the Journey
Age of Empire and Commerce:
Galenson, David. “The Rise and Fall of Indentured Servitude in the Americas,” The Journal of Economic History, Mar., 1984, Vol. 44, No. 1 (Mar., 1984), pp. 1-26
Age of Mass Migration:
Kobrin, R. A. (2026). “The Business of Mass Migration,” Chapter 2 in Credit to the nation: Eastern European Jewish immigrant bankers and the shaping of American finance, 1873–1930. Harvard University Press.
Recommended:
Abramitzky, Ran, Leah Platt Boustan, and Katherine Eriksson. 2012. “Europe’s Tired, Poor, Huddled Masses: Self-Selection and Economic Outcomes in the Age of Mass Migration.” American Economic Review 102 (5): 1832–1856. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.102.5.1832

Initial meeting for The Lehman Trilogy

10/5

Module 3: Financing the Journey
Age of Shadow Migration
"The Epidemic of Debt Plaguing Central American Migrants" (Pulitzer Center, 2019), https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/epidemic-debt-plaguing-central-american-migrants
Ruiz Soto, Ariel G.; Rossella Bottone; Jaret Waters; Sarah Williams; Ashley Louie and Yuehan Wang. 2021. “The Economic Costs of Migration,” Section 3 in Charting a New Regional Course of Action: The Complex Motivations and Costs of Central American Migration, Inter-American Development Bank

Second meeting for the Lehman Trilogy

10/12

Module 4: Financing En Route
Age of Mass Migration
https://www.hursthistory.org/uploads/1/0/7/0/107013873/steerage.pdf
Age of Shadow Migration
Wilson, Kimberley.  Financial Biographies of Refugees in Mexico, Nov. 2022, Henry J. Leir Institute for Migration and Human Security
Frangos, Anargiros and Kim Wilson. January 2023. Coyotes, Tandas and a Quest for Closure, Henry J. Leir Institute for Migration and Human Security
Wilson, Kimberley. April 2019. Financial Biographies
of Long Distance Journeyers, Part 2: From Asia and Africa through South and Central America toward the US and Canada, Henry J. Leir Institute for Migration and Human Security

Assignment: An Interactive Look at a Syrian Migrant's Journey

10/19

Module 4: Financing En Route
Look at slides for Journeys: Migrants in Transit; and Smuggler Viewpoint
read and discuss Jason De Leon, "The Land of Open Graves," University of California Press, 2015, chapters 4-7

Second half:
Lower Manhattan Slavery Walk

10/26

Module 5: Financing the Business of Life
Age of Empire and Commerce:
Edwards, Justene Hill.  ‘“This Slavery Business Is a Horrible Thing”: The Economy of American Slavery in the Lives of the Enslaved.’  Business History Review 97 (Summer 2023): 307–334. doi:10.1017/S000768052300034X
Edwards, Justene Hill.  “Introduction: Capitalism in the Economic Lives of Enslaved People.” In Unfree Markets: The Slaves’ Economy and the Rise of Capitalism in South Carolina. Columbia University Press, 2021. http://www.jstor.org.rlib.pace.edu/stable/10.7312/hill19112.5.
Edwards, Justene Hill. “‘Negroes Publickly Cabaling in the Streets: The Enslaved Economy and the Culture of Slavery in Colonial South Carolina.” In Unfree Markets: The Slaves’ Economy and the Rise of Capitalism in South Carolina. Columbia University Press, 2021. http://www.jstor.org.rlib.pace.edu/stable/10.7312/hill19112.6.

11/2

Midterm

11/9

Module 5: Financing the Business of Life
Age of Mass Migration
Kobrin, R. A. (2026). “Eastern European Jewish Immigrant Bankers and the Financial Landscape of New York City,” Chapter 3 in Credit to the nation: Eastern European Jewish immigrant bankers and the shaping of American finance, 1873–1930. Harvard University Press.
Kobrin, Rebecca. 2018.  “Jewish Immigrant Bankers, New York Real Estate, and American Finance, 1870–1914” in Hasia R. Diner (ed.) Doing Business in America: A Jewish History. Purdue University Press, 2018. Project MUSE, https://muse.jhu.edu/book/65068.
Recommended:
McCraw, T. K. "Immigrant Entrepreneurs in U.S. Financial History, 1775-1914." Capitalism and Society 5, no. 1 (January 2010): 1–47.

Rebecca Kobrin’s talk

11/16

Module 5: Financing the Business of Life
Age of Shadow Migration
Ashe, J., & Wilson, K. (2025). Backyard bankers: Immigrants, money clubs, and the pursuit of the American dream. Practical Action Publishing.
Zhao, Linda Shuo. 2013.  “Underground banks in NYC, their main clientele and operators: The perspective of Chinese illegal immigrants,” International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice, 41 (2013) 36e57
Lisa A Keister. 2015. “Financial Asset Ownership: The Case of Chinese and Indian Immigrants to the United States, Bus Econ J. 2015 ; 6:24

Visiting El Barrio
OR Talk by Jessie Lee from Renaissance CDFI

11/23

Module 6: Remittances
Age of Shadow Migration
“U.S. Immigrants, Remittances, and the Courts, 1904–1925,” in Speculative Endeavors: Cultures of Knowledge and Capital in the Long Nineteenth Century ed. Katrin Horn et al. (University of Manchester Press, 2025): https://doi.org/10.7765/9781526182166.00010

Jill Sung’s talk

11/30

Module 6: Remittances
The Age of Shadow Migration
Ruiz Soto, Ariel G.; Rossella Bottone; Jaret Waters; Sarah Williams; Ashley Louie and Yuehan Wang. 2021. “The Economic Impacts of Migration,” Section 4 in Charting a New Regional Course of Action: The Complex Motivations and Costs of Central American Migration, Inter-American Development Bank

12/7

Module 7: Migration Industry and its Political Economy
Mayda, Anna Maria; Giovanni Peri. 2018. ”The Political Impact of Immigration: Evidence from the United States,” Research Briefs in Economic Policy, no. 130, Cato Institute, Sept. 12

Lehman Trilogy presentation

12/14

Final