ABSTRACT
The authors of several essays in this volume, including Hasia R. Diner, Susan Hardwick, and Barbara Schmitter Heisler (Chapers 1, 6, 4), express regret regarding the virtual absence of theory in the studies of migration in their respective fields, that is, history, geography, and sociology. The research in their fields is far too often group or time and place specific, with little use of theory to motivate the analysis or to generalize the findings. This criticism is seldom leveled at economics. Indeed, all too often historians, sociologists, and other social scientists complain that economics is much too focused on formalism, with too little interest in specific groups or time and place.1
