Ian Goldin, Geoffrey Cameron, and Meera Balarajan set themselves the ambitious goal of challenging the dogma that an increase in cross-border migration is undesirable. To that end, Goldin, Cameron, and Balarajan first review the key role that migrants played in spreading ideas and knowledge before the advent of modern communication technologies. The authors analyze subsequently the contemporary period of managed migration that arose in the wake of WWI. Goldin, Cameron, and Balarajan do a great job in highlighting the paradox in which the world has operated mostly for the last century. Humanity lives in an increasingly globalized environment. At the same time, the international flow of people has never been as tightly regulated as it is today.
The authors share with their audience the evidence that clearly show that sending and receiving countries as well as a majority of migrants benefit from migration today.
Many developed countries face concomitantly shrinking workforces and aging populations, resulting in a higher economic demand for low-skilled workers. Many (service) jobs will not fall prey to technology. Furthermore, undocumented migration has been quietly tolerated for a long time. These (low-skilled) migrants are meeting critical needs in the economies of the receiving countries. Think for example about the agricultural sector in the United States. In addition, enterprises, especially the large companies, will keep the pressure on (elected) officials to admit more high-skilled workers, especially in academic, business, and technologies. Businesses are often interested in hiring people with cross-cultural skills and perspectives and the education to thrive in an information-driven environment. Think for example about the high-skilled immigrants who often end up founding enterprises, which create much-needed jobs in the United States. The competition for this talent is expected to gain in intensity along with the rise of emerging economies.
To their credit, Goldin, Cameron, and Balarajan note with much honesty that while the fiscal impact of migration in a country like the United States is strongly positive at the national level, it can be substantially negative at state and local levels. What matters more than absolute sizes of migration populations is the rate at which they grow.
The authors conclude that raising taxes, postponing retirement, convincing more women to work (with childcare, part-time work, and other incentives) and rolling back public services will probably not be enough to overcome the economic consequences of dramatic demographic changes in many developed economies. Interestingly, Goldin, Cameron, and Balarajan debunk the idea that climate change will result in a "horde" of up to 200 million "environmental refugees" by 2050. International migration has been historically contemplated only when the socio-economic livelihood of people is severely and permanently impaired and domestic alternatives are exhausted.
Sending countries often benefit paradoxically from skilled emigration to developed countries despite its near-term negative impact. High rate of unemployment among skilled professionals is behind most "brain drain" emanating from developing countries. Increasingly, sending countries view skilled migrants who have worked abroad return home to foster new industries or chart a new political path ("brain circulation"). Think for example about the skilled migrants who return to India after working in the United States for some time. Furthermore, sending countries benefit from the remittances received from their migrants abroad, which represent their largest source of external finance. Think for example about the positive effects of remittances on the Mexican economy. However, the economic effects of remittances on the economies of sending countries should not be unduly exaggerated. Goldin, Cameron, and Balarajan conclude by saying that international immigration and remittances significantly reduce the level, depth, and severity of poverty in the developing economies.
The majority of migrants, with the notable exceptions of trafficked people, a.k.a. "modern slaves", and asylum seekers, are economically better off for moving, especially those who move from developing to developed countries. However, Goldin, Cameron, and Balarajan note that the wage, education, and healthcare gains experienced by most migrants are qualified by the obstacles that they face in their countries of adoption. Migrants still experience xenophobia and social exclusion in many developed countries, especially when economic crisis or insecurity is gaining in traction. Think for example about what the authors call "downward assimilation," which is particularly noticeable among Latinos in the United States.
Goldin, Cameron, and Balarajan expect that international migration will continue its upward trend in the next fifty years due to the following six interrelated factors:
1. Persistent inter-country inequality and wage disparities;
2. Economic growth in the poorest countries;
3. Rural displacement and urbanization;
4. Rising education standards in developing countries;
5. Growing working-age populations in developing countries;
6. Environmental stress.
Simultaneously, growing labor and demographic gaps in many developed countries will pressurize policymakers to bring in more migrants to fill in these gaps. These countries will not be able to meet the growing gaps in their workforces through growth in undocumented migration that has been quietly tolerated. Unfortunately, the authors address nowhere the issue of increasing structural unemployment that exists in many developed economies ("brain waste").
For these reasons, Goldin, Cameron, and Balarajan call for a global migration agenda to harness the many benefits of increased migration while minimizing and mitigating its costs. The status quo is deemed not to be sustainable because it is rooted in an antiquated, piecemeal doctrine of national primacy in managing international migration. The authors note that the International Organization for Migration (IOM) does not have the necessary legitimacy, governance, or executive power to change this status quo. The common objection raised against that global migration agenda is that receiving and sending countries are not better off with greater international mobility. Hopefully, Goldin, Cameron, and Balarajan will manage to convince an increasing number of decision-makers that migration is a defining characteristic of human societies and a driving force of global history for the better.
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