Abstract
This chapter explores the subsidized European immigration of the state of Sao Paulo, in Brazil, between 1882 and 1920. It documents how the program attracted families of farmers from Europe, how it managed them upon arrival, and how the Department of Labor then assigned these workers, in quasi-random fashion, as short-term labor to farms throughout the state. The chapter argues that this quasi-random allocation coupled with the randomness in the composition of immigrant flows and in the demand for laborers all led to variation in the intensity of immigration over time and across municipalities. The intensity with which municipalities used European migrants, especially Italians, is linked to higher coffee farm output and a higher rate of adoption of agricultural tools and machinery such as plows, harrows, cultivators, and, eventually, tractors.
