What would happen if the EU opened its borders to everyone?

Michael Clemens is kicking ass and taking names over at Vice.

His best guess is population would rise 10% and this would have more benefits than costs, even to lower-income EU residents. But there are far more interesting parts of the interview.

VICE: Mr. Clemens, apart from political reasons—why do people try to migrate to wealthy countries?
Michael Clemens: People from poor countries migrate mainly to get safety for themselves and their families, and to get proper compensation for their hard work and study. Safety and opportunity depend mostly on what country you live in, and 97 percent of humanity lives in the country they were born in. For those of us born in safe, prosperous countries, such a random lottery seems quite satisfactory. Most migrants are people who have simply decided that they will not let lottery results enforced by others determine the course of their lives.

Within our own countries, we know why people leave neighborhoods that are dangerous, poor, or both. These are the same reasons that people leave countries that are dangerous, poor, or both. But there are two differences. Many people in dangerous, poor countries live with risk and destitution that even the poorest people in rich countries will never face and cannot imagine. And, of course, no one stands at the exit to poor neighborhoods, coercing people to stay inside with a gun.

…VICE: Alright then. But would easier emigration not hurt the development of those poorer countries that the people come from?
Michael Clemens: We are talking about immigration policy here. That is, we are not talking about whether people should or shouldn’t stay in poor countries. We’re talking about the extent to which rich countries should or shouldn’t forcibly obstruct migration. That is what “migration policy” does. A visa doesn’t oblige a person to move; a visa is a decision not to actively stop that person from moving.

So if we’re talking about immigration policy, the question “Does migration substantially harm low-income countries?” is the same as the question, “Does forcibly stopping people from leaving low income countries substantially help those countries?” To put it mildly, social science has absolutely no evidence of such a effect.

Would it be different in poor countries? How about in poor areas of Africa? We do not need to wonder that either. Parts of Africa that are as prosperous as parts of Europe—Johannesburg, Pretoria, and Cape Town—have spent several generations actively blocking most black Africans from living and working there. Many people in those enclaves claimed that this was somehow beneficial to black Africans, encouraging them to “develop” their own lands. There is no evidence at all of such a positive effect.

I think bringing the debate back to basic notions of liberty is important, especially the reminders about men with guns enforcing the status quo.

Even so, I would have thought it’s also true that emigration is not just the best development intervention in the world for the person to gets to migrate, but it’s good for poor countries too.

For instance, when people migrate out of a place, labor supply decreases, increasing wages and incentives to mechanize and improve productivity. Plus remittances from the huge increase in migrant incomes reduce poverty and increase demand, again putting upward pressure on wages. Surely this study exists?

Yes, I am too lazy to open the development textbooks on myself to the undergraduate chapters on “Migration” that no doubt supply this answer. Besides, the random responses from readers are probably far more interesting.

27 Responses

  1. Nick, the relevant comparison is: how would Detroit, Stockton, CA and Puerto Rico be doing, if no one would be allowed to leave? It’s not fair to compare them to other places. Detroit got hit hard, and likely out-migration helped ameliorate that a lot, both for leavers and those who stayed. Wages would have plummeted if everyone stayed. And so on.

    1. thanks gabriel. makes sense i guess. scary to think that this is the ‘good’ scenario for those places.

  3. i’m not a development economist, but by this logic though, shouldn’t Detroit, Stockton, CA and Puerto Rico all be doing really well? lots of people leaving. hard to keep up services with a shrinking population and shrinking tax base, no? doesn’t seem like a slam dunk case. probably lots of examples either way i would guess.

  5. There was the 2007 paper by Prachi Mishra that found that found a strong positive effect on wages in Mexico from Mexican emigration to the U.S.

    Journal of Development Economics 82, p. 180

  6. Lant Pritchett’s book addresses your bleg somewhat: http://www.cgdev.org/sites/default/files/9781933286105-Pritchett-let-their-people-come.pdf

    Chapter 2, Ghosts & Zombies, describes how migration controls have prevented countries from responding to exogenous shocks that reduce the optimal population of their societies. It concludes:

    “A helpful way of thinking about desired populations is the following: There are 10 million people in the Sahelian country of Niger; if there were globally free labor mobility and only 1 million lived in Niger now, how many people would move there? Though some people might say that this creates a case for more aid or freer trade, it is hard to believe that if people moved out of Kansas because farming was no longer an attractive opportunity, then the best that can be done for the people of Niger or Chad is that they get slightly more assistance and slightly better prices for the items they grow.”

  7. Forgive the author’s ignorance when he says: “At an especially organized summit, EU leaders agreed upon implementing extensive measures to be able to rescue more people from danger at sea.”