Ideas to Action:
Independent research for global prosperity
Richer countries are under pressure to respond to and suppress high levels of irregular migration reaching their borders. One prominent recommendation is for richer countries to expand opportunities for lawful or regular migration. Suppose they do. Will more regular migration simply raise migration overall, or will it substitute for and reduce irregular migration?
The Global Compact on Migration (GCM) is an opportunity for all of us to make history. I join as an economist with the many other government, humanitarian, development, and international actors mobilized behind the GCM because I wish for the Compact to rise to that occasion. To do that, it must propose new mechanisms for substantial, additional, lawful, economic labor mobility.
Today we launch a detailed proposal for a new era of collaboration between the United States and Mexico: bilateral regulation of temporary, lawful labor mobility across the border. I join with a diverse, five-star group of experts from both countries—chaired by Ernesto Zedillo, the former president of Mexico and Carlos Gutierrez, the U.S. Secretary of Commerce under George W. Bush (as featured in the New York Times)—to say that it is time for a new vision of the shared future at our shared border. We offer specific ways to get there.
Michael Clemens released a groundbreaking (pun intended) new CGD working paper today titled The Effect of Foreign Labor on Native Employment: A Job-Specific Approach and Application to North Carolina Farms. Too busy to wade through the research methodology?
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