Migration and Development: Who Bears the Burden of Proof? Justin Sandefur replies to Paul Collier
Justin Sandefur responds to yesterday’s post by Paul Collier on the impact of migration on developing countries, and you get to vote.
The global diaspora of educated Africans, Asians, and Latin Americans living in the developed world stand accused of undermining the development of their countries of origin.
Paul Collier’s recent book, Exodus, makes the case for strict ceilings on the movement of people from poor countries to rich ones. My colleague Michael Clemens and I already reviewed the book at length for Foreign Affairs (ungated here), but Duncan asked me to respond to the specific issue Paul raised in his recent post for this blog: that skilled migration from some low-income countries is so high that it undermines the development prospects of people “left behind”.
I suspect many people reading this blog in Europe or North America share Professor Collier’s skepticism about skilled migration. You are not racist or xenophobic. You are concerned about the plight of the global poor, and you welcome diversity in your community. But you worry that maybe Paul’s right. Maybe the fate of your university-educated Haitian neighbor down the street, earning a good salary and sending her kids to good schools since moving to the UK, is a distraction from, and maybe even a hindrance to, reducing poverty in Haiti.
"Men often hate each other because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don't know each other; they don't know each other because they can not communicate; they can not communicate because they are separated."
The central puzzle has often been wondered about in a thousand and one fora since the global financial crisis that began in 2008 erupted, wreaking havoc with several economies and millions of lives: how is it that social convulsions have not been the resultant of the financial crisis, the deep depressions it led to in the major economies of the West, the misery inflicted on millions, and the super-elite-pampering policies introduced to deal with the crisis? Why did puny efforts at protest like Occupy Wall Street and its many imitators vanish like candlelight in a storm?
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