Migration and Development and Migration as Development.pptVIP

Migration and Development and Migration as Development Lant Pritchett Kennedy School of Government Presentation to Conference on International Migration and Development January 18, 2008 Migration and Development:Four Hard Issues Migration as Development—Income Per Natural Hard-core ghost countries? Bias in development due to research priorities in rich countries Brain Drain When does the median voter stop opposing migration from poor countries? In many cases those who escape poverty do so by moving Percent of non-poor residing in the USA at global and US poverty lines There are countries of cumulatively 100 million people for whom income per natural exceeds GDP per resident by 30 percent Population mobility has been an adjustment to changing circumstances The proliferation of sovereigns plus labor immobility International system is premised on closed borders. There is not compelling reason to believe that all borders were drawn so as to include an economically viable and prosperous region. If you trap labor in places with declining demand you produce falling wages. Are the nurses of the future Robots or Rosalie? The historically huge decrease in the cost of capital and the rise in returns to education—unskilled labor is threatened by skill biased technical change—lack of labor mobility exacerbate this problem? Coping with demographics with robots Bias in research The one thing we know about “poverty reducing economic growth” or “inclusive growth” is that it is labor intensive. Much technological progress is unskilled labor displacing e.g. ATMs, automated check-out because plentiful high skill and cheap capital plus border restrictions—labor saving technical change Potentially a more serious impediment to development than any other research bias e.g. in medicine Brain Drain: high private returns but mixed evidence on growth impact In environments with poor economic conditions more human capital does not lead to growth In environments with poor economic