REVIEW OF ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES – NÁRODOHOSPODÁŘSKÝ OBZOR
VOL. 16, ISSUE 1, 2016, pp. 63-67, DOI: 10.1515/revecp-2016-0005
© 2016 by the authors; licensee Review of Economic Perspectives / Národohospodářský obzor, Masaryk University,
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Book Review: Exodus. How Migration is Changing
Our World
Marek Loužek1
Paul Collier, a professor of economics at the Oxford University, has already made a
name for himself with a number of interesting books, such as “The Bottom Billion”
(2007). This time, the topic he chose for his new book is migration – a topic sensitively
monitored by the general public. Each individual exodus is a triumph of the human
spirit, courage and ingenuity overcoming the bureaucratic barriers imposed by the fearful
rich. But believing that migration only has bright sides would be a triumph of hope
over experience.
In Collier’s opinion, migration has been politicized before it has been analyzed. The
movement of people from poor countries to rich ones is a simple economic process, but
its effects are complex. Public policy on migration needs to come to terms with this
complexity. Currently, policies toward migration vary enormously, both in countries of
origin and host countries.
Migration is a subject on which almost everyone seems to have strong views. People
can usually support their views with a smattering of analysis. In large part these views
are derived from prior moral tastes rather than from superior command of the evidence.
Evidence-based analysis is the strong suit of economics. Like many policy issues, migration
has economic causes and consequences, and so economics is at the forefront of
assessing policy.
For half a century following the outbreak of the First World War countries closed their
borders. Wars and the Depression made migration practically difficult and immigrations
unwelcome. By the 1960s people overwhelmingly lived in the country in which they
had been born. But during the half-century of immobility, there had been a dramatic
change in the global economy: a gulf had opened up between the incomes of countries.
Policies not only vary between countries, they oscillate between the open door favored
by economists and the closed door favored by electorates. For example, in Britain the
door was opened in the 1950s, partially closed in 1968, flung open again in 1997, and is
now being closed again.
We know three big things about what drives international migration. One is that migration
is an economic response to the gap in income other things being equal, the wider
the gap in income, the stronger the pressure to migrate. The second is that there are a
1
Associate professor at University of Economics, Department of Economic and Social Policy,
Faculty of Economics. E-mail: louzek@post.cz
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myriad of impediments to migration, economic, legal, and social, that are cumulatively
important, so that migration is an investment: cost must be borne before benefits can be
reaped. If the gap is wide because people in the country of origin are desperately poor,
their desire to migrate is likely to be frustrated. The third big thing is that costs of migration
are greatly eased by the presence in the host country of a diaspora from the
country of origin. So the rate of migration is determined by the width of the gap, the
level of income in countries of origin, and the size of the diaspora.
Any honest analysis of migration must recognize that there are both winners and losers,
and that even determining the overall effect on a particular group can be ambiguous,
depending on how gains are measured against losses. Collier analyses the impact of
migration on three groups of people: the migrants themselves, the indigenous population
of the host country, and the people left behind in the country of origin.
Firstly, migrants face costs of overcoming the barriers to movement that are substantial,
but they reap economic benefits that are much larger than these costs. Migrants capture
the lion’s share of the economic gains from migration. The big gains accrue as a result
of moving from a country in which workers are paid little to one in which they are paid
a lot. By shifting a worker from a dysfunctional society to a more functional one, their
productivity can increase tenfold. Many people cannot afford to migrate: it is a form of
investment. Like all investments, costs have to be incurred up front, while benefits come
gradually over time. The best time for migration is while the worker is still young.
Some new evidence indicates that these large economic gains are partly, or perhaps
substantially, offset by psychological losses. For the typical migrant from a low-income
country who comes to a high-income country, the income gain is overkill. Families are
separated, and the migrant spends his life in a culturally alien environment. He may tune
in to the radio from his home country, surround himself with friends from the diaspora,
and return home annually, but day by day the absence from home may make him less
happy.
The massive productivity gains from migration that so excite economists and that migrants
capture appear not to translate into additional well-being. Migration does not
deliver the anticipated free lunch, or rather the free lunch comes at the price of indigestion.
As opposed to that, children of migrants grow up without the nostalgia of their
parents. Migrants move for the benefit of their children rather than themselves.
Secondly, Collier examines the impact of migration on the host countries. The immigration
of workers would be expected to reduce wages and increase the returns on capital.
As a result, indigenous workers would be worse off and indigenous wealth owners
would be better off. Migrants increase the diversity of society. In some respects this is
beneficial: greater diversity brings greater variety and so brings stimulus and choice.
But diversity also brings problems. This is because in a modern economy well-being is
greatly enhanced by what might be described as mutual regard.
Migration produces diasporas, and diasporas produce migration. The prolonged period
during the twentieth century in which the borders of rich countries were closed to migrants
from poor countries implied that as of around 1960 there were no significant
diasporas. Starting from 1960, migration preceded the buildup of diasporas. Because
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diasporas were initially negligible, despite the wide income gap, even once borders were
opened, there was only modest migration.
Collier models a migration function where axis y represents the degree of migration and
axis x represents the size of the diaspora. The larger the size of the diaspora is relative to
the indigenous population, the smaller will be the proportion of its interactions with the
indigenous. Even when there is no diaspora, there is some migration, because the income
gap induces some people to relocate. But the larger the diaspora, the faster the
migration from country of origin.
The income gap between poor countries and rich ones is wide and the global growth
process will leave it wide for several decades. Migration will not significantly narrow
this gap because the feedback mechanisms are too weak. Therefore, migration continues,
diaspora will continue to accumulate for some decades. Thus, the income gap will
persist, while the facilitator for migration will increase. The implication is that migration
from poor countries to rich is set to accelerate.
Mutual regard, or sympathy, gives rise to feeling of loyalty and solidarity for those
fellow members of our community who are less fortunate. The greater the proportion of
immigrants in a community, the lower the mutual levels of trust were between immigrants
and the indigenous population. In other words, far from proximity leading to
greater mutual understanding, it leads to heightened mutual suspicion.
Migrants increase social diversity. Diversity enriches economies by bringing fresh perspectives
for problem solving, and the variety it brings with it enhances the pleasures of
life. But diversity also undermines mutual regard and its invaluable benefits of cooperation
and generosity. The corrosive effects of diversity are accentuated if migrants are
from countries with dysfunctional social models to which they remained attached. There
is therefore a trade-off between the costs and benefits of diversity.
The third aspect, which Collier examines, is the impact of migration on the countries of
origin. A badly governed country is likely to experience a lot of emigration: people who
cannot vote with a ballot slip vote with their feet. The most common phrase used to
describe them is “brain drain”: emigration draws off the brightest, most ambitious, and
most educated people from the society.
The possibility of emigration opens up life chances dramatically, not just for the migrant
but for the entire family. In many cases migration is more a family decision than that of
the migrant alone: the migrant is not escaping from the family but is part of a larger
strategy of enlarging opportunities. From the perspective of other family members,
migrants are investments that often pay off handsomely through a prolonged stream of
remittances and enhanced access for further migration.
Therefore, Collier arrives at the conclusion that migration is good for those left behind.
Poor choices in economic policy, dysfunctional ideologies, bad geography, negative
attitudes about work, the legacy of colonialism, and a lack of education may result in
massive migration. Workers who migrate from poor countries to rich ones are switching
social models. As a result their productivity rockets upward.
So the implication is that while migration is helping those left behind, it would help
even more, if there was less of it. But countries of origin cannot control emigration
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themselves: the rate is determined by the policies of host countries. The polemical debate,
migration is good versus migration is bad, makes it much harder to frame an ideal
policy: not a door that is open or closed, but one that is ajar.
Migration policies are set not by the governments of countries of origin but by those of
host countries. In any democratic society, the government must reflect the interests of
the majority of its citizens, but both the indigenous poor and those living in the poorest
societies are of legitimate concern to citizens. Hence, in setting migration policy, host
governments will need to balance the interests of the indigenous poor against the interests
of migrants and of those left behind in poor countries.
An argument often invoked in favor of migration is that migrants are disproportionately
innovative. A commonly cited figure is that in the US immigrants and their children
account for a disproportionate number of patented inventions. In short, immigrants tend
to be exceptional. However, the American experience may be due more to the exceptional
nature of America, as a magnet for innovative entrepreneurs, than to the exceptional
nature of migrants globally. Even if migrants are self-selected to be exceptional,
then the gains for high-income countries are offset by losses for poor countries of
origin. A talent transfer from poor societies to rich ones is not necessarily something
that should be cause for global celebration.
However, immigrants are exceptional in one respect and that is crime. Across Europe,
for a variety of reasons, foreigners tend to be heavily overrepresented in the prison population.
France is fairly typical, with foreigners constituting around 6 % of the overall
population and 21 % of the prison population. Higher proportions of foreigners in the
prison population are also confirmed by German and British statistics.
Multiculturalism was framed more positively by liberal elites as desirable in itself: such
a society provided more variety and stimulus than a society with a single culture. In this
form multiculturalism embraces the permanent coexistence of distinct cultures in the
same country. The nation is reconceived to be a geopolitical space in which separate
cultural communities peaceably coexist with equal legal and social status.
In Europe, until recently the dominant tendency among political elites has been to espouse
multiculturalism interpreted as the right to persistent cultural separatism. This
orthodoxy and its supporting policies responded to, and legitimized, a preference for
cultural separatism on the part of major groups of immigrants. While migration does not
make nations obsolete, the continued acceleration of migration in conjunction with a
policy of multiculturalism might potentially threaten their viability. Absorption has
proved more difficult than anticipated.
Whether or not host populations have moral right to manage migration in their own
interests, they currently have the legal right to do so. Since scarcely any governments
claim he legal right to restrict exit, all controls on global migration flows are ultimately
set by the perceived interests of host populations. However, although the high-income
countries are democratic, their migration policies have often not reflected the views of
the indigenous electorate. The rise of populist parties in Europe reflects the concerns of
ordinary people about immigration.
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Only from the wilder shores of libertarianism and utilitarianism can it be argued that
migration controls are ethically illegitimate. Extreme libertarianism denies the right of
governments to restrict individual freedom, in this instance the freedom of movement.
Universalist utilitarianism wants to maximize world utility by whatever means. The best
possible outcome would be if the entire world population moved to the country in which
people were most productive, leaving the rest of the earth empty. Evidently, neither of
these philosophies provides an ethical framework by which a democratic society would
wish to navigate migration policy.
In the absence of controls, migration and the diaspora would expand without limit.
However, instead of leaving migration to accelerate until the point of policy panic, the
governments of host countries now adopt a package of policies designed around ceiling,
the selection of migrants, the integration of diasporas, and the legalization of illegal
immigrants.
For unrestricted migration to be the moral principle for, say, African immigration to
America, it must also be the principle for Chinese immigration to Africa. Yet most
African societies are understandably extremely wary of unrestricted migration. Even the
economists who extol the billions of dollars to be gained from the free movement of
labor between countries do not literally advocate unrestricted migration.
In Collier’s opinion, it is wrong to ask “Is migration bad or good?”. Asking this question
of migration is about as sensible as it would be to ask “Is eating bad or good?” In
both cases the pertinent question is not bad or good but how much is best. Some migration
is almost certainly better than no migration. But just as eating too much can lead to
obesity, so migration can be excessive.
References
COLLIER, P. (2013) Exodus. How Migration is Changing Our World. Oxford – New
York, Oxford University Press, 310 pages, ISBN 978-0-19-539865-6.