Migration and Development

In this working paper, the authors find that remittances are often greatly underestimated in surveys. They suggest ways to improve the collection of such data.

The Commitment to Development Index ranks 22 of the world’s richest countries on their dedication to policies that benefit the 5.5 billion people living in poorer nations. Moving beyond standard comparisons of foreign aid volumes, the CDI quantifies a range of rich-country policies that affect...

Barriers to emigration cost the world economy much more than all remaining barriers to the international movement of goods and capital combined, but they are given little attention by economists. Michael Clemens writes that they deserve a much higher research priority and sketches a four-point...

This policy brief explores the various legal channels through which the U.S. government could leverage the power of migration to help provide disaster relief.

This paper explores the legal means by which victims of natural disasters could qualify as refugees and thus benefit from the power of migration as a tool for disaster recovery.

The Commitment to Development Index (CDI) ranks 22 of the world’s richest countries on their dedication to policies that benefit the five billion people living in poorer nations. Moving beyond standard comparisons of foreign aid volumes, the CDI quantifies a range of rich country policies that...

For the first time, the elderly, urban populations, and women of reduced fertility outnumber their counterparts. Joel E. Cohen discusses how changing demographic trends will require a heavier focus on primary and secondary education, reproductive health and demographically sensitive urban planning.

This study uses a unique natural experiment to test a simple model of international differences in workers’ wages and productivity. Its findings have implications for open questions in labor, growth, international, and development economics.

This paper argues that every rich country should consider its immigration policy to be part of its international development policy, and vice versa. A development policy that includes migration will be more effective; an immigration policy that includes development will better serve rich...

The emigration of skilled workers from developing countries is often referred to as brain drain and considered something that should be limited. In this paper, resident fellow Michael Clemens takes the term to task and shows instead that a more open skill flow—a more accurate and neutral...

Does the emigration of highly educated people necessarily deplete skills in developing countries through a brain drain? Maybe not. In Fiji, according to a new CGD working paper by Satish Chand and CGD research fellow Michael Clemens, the sudden and massive departure of people with higher education...

The White House and the World: A Global Development Agenda for the Next U.S. President shows how modest changes in U.S. policies could greatly improve the lives of poor people in developing countries, thus fostering greater stability, security, and prosperity globally and at home. Center for Global...

International movements of people can spark and sustain the development process in poor countries, helping people climb out of poverty. Creating opportunities for poor people to improve their lives promotes our values, enhances our security,and restores our faltering image abroad. The next...

Are your wages determined by what you know, or where you are? This paper estimates how the wages of workers in 42 developing countries would change if the same people could work in the United States. It uses a rich new database on over two million workers around the world. A worker from the...

How committed are the world's richest countries to the development of Africa, the world's poorest continent? Rich countries are usually compared on how much foreign aid they give as a percentage of their GDP, but helping Africa involves much more than aid. CGD's Commitment to Development Index has...

Data on the average income of a resident of Ecuador is easy to find. But until now there has been no data on the average income of a person born in Ecuador, regardless of where she or he lives. In this paper, research fellow Michael Clemens and non-resident fellow Lant Pritchett introduce a new...

The wellbeing of adolescent girls in developing countries shapes global economic and social prosperity -- yet girls' needs often are consigned to the margins of development policies and programs. This new report describes why and how to provide adolescent girls in developing countries a full and...

Each year since 2003, the Commitment to Development Index (CDI) has ranked 21 rich countries on their dedication (or not!) to policies that benefit the five billion people living in poor countries. The CDI moves beyond simple comparisons of aid funding and in so doing embodies the mission of CGD,...

Increased labor mobility offers potentially huge gains for the developing and developed world, but migration is massively unpopular in rich countries. In this CGD Brief, non-resident fellow Lant Pritchett lays out a solution that is beneficial to poor people and potentially politically acceptable...

How do people escape poverty? In this working paper, CGD senior fellow Peter Timmer and his co-authors describe pathways out of poverty in Indonesia from 1993 to 2000, a period of economic and political turmoil. They find that most rural poor people who escaped poverty did so without moving to...

Large numbers of African nurses and doctors are emigrating to the U.S., U.K., Australia and other rich countries. These movements strain local health systems and deprive sick people of urgently needed care. Right? Think again. What if wages and working conditions in city slums and rural villages...

In CGD working paper 95, research fellow Michael Clemens and Gunilla Petterrsson estimate the number of African-born doctors and professional nurses working abroad in a developed countries circa 2000 using destination-country census data. They then compare this to the stocks of these workers in...

This controversial book argues that irresistible demographic forces for greater international labor mobility are being checked by immovable anti-immigration ideas of rich-country citizens. Pritchett proposes breaking the gridlock through policies that support development while also being...

The migration of doctors and nurses from Africa to rich countries has raised fears of an African medical brain drain. Research on the issue has been hampered by lack of data. How many doctors and nurses have left Africa? Which countries did they leave? Where have they settled? To answer these...

Development refers to improvements in the conditions of people’s lives, such as health, education, and income. It occurs at different rates in different countries. The U.S. underwent its own version of development since the time it became an independent nation in 1776. Learn more about Rich...

The Commitment to Development Index (CDI), which ranks 21 countries across six policy areas, is widely seen as the most comprehensive and substantive measure of rich country policies towards development. In response to requests from other would-be index builders, CDI architect David Roodman...

Human capital flows from poor countries to rich countries are large and growing. A leading cause is the increasing skill-focus of immigration policy in a number of leading industrialized countries—a trend that is likely to intensify as rich countries age and competitive pressures build in...

A CGD best-seller, Give Us Your Best and Brightest has been praised in Foreign Affairs as "a judicious combination of facts, theory, and informed conjecture on a growing but complex phenomenon about which too little is known." Best and Brightest addresses the migration of well-educated workers from...

After two decades of neglect, interest in agriculture is on the rise. This new working paper by one of the leading thinkers in rural development argues that the reach and efficiency of rural infrastructure, coupled with effective investment in agricultural research and extension, hold the key to...

New medicines are usually financed by a mixture of public funding by governments, philanthropic giving, and investment by private firms. Private investment is especially important in paying for and managing the later stages of clinical trials, regulatory approval, and investment in manufacturing...

A Better Globalization: Legitimacy, Governance, and Reform by Kemal Dervis is a reformist manifesto that argues that gradual institutional change can produce beneficial results if it is driven by an ambitious long-term vision and by a determination to continually widen the limits of the possible.

This brief summarizes five key recommendations from the CGD book A Better Globalization: Legitimacy, Governance, and Reform by Kemal Dervis. It presses for reform on a broad front with a renewed, more legitimate, and more effective United Nations as the overarching framework for global governance...

This Brief is based on the CGD book Millions Saved: Proven Successes in Global Health. The book book features 17 success stories. These cases describe some large-scale efforts to improve health in developing countries that have succeeded - saving millions of lives and preserving the livelihoods...

This paper reviews research on the impact of rice prices on the poor, on real wages in rural and urban areas, and on the broader macroeconomic consequences for investments in labor-intensive manufacturing.

This paper is part of the Copenhagen Consensus process, which aims to assess and evaluate the opportunities available to address the ten largest challenges facing the world. One of these ten challenges is the “lack of education.” This paper provides an analytical framework to evaluate the...

Ghost towns dot the West of the United States. These cities boomed for a period and then, for various reasons, fell into a process of decline and have shrunk to a small fraction of their former population. Are there ghost countries—countries that, if there were population mobility, would only...