Click here to read Migrants Count: Five Steps Toward Better Migration Data
Background and Purpose
We know quite a lot about how the various dimensions of richer advanced countries' policies affect poorer developing countries, either directly or indirectly. We know, for example, that if rich countries fully opened their markets to products from poor countries, the value in increased income for those poor countries would be almost double that of development assistance. We know that rich country foreign direct investment flows provide jobs, help create local industries, and transfer technologies. But, what about the movement of people? How do rich country immigration policies affect developing countries? Do they impact only those who move? Or, do they also affect the sending countries? The sad and surprising answer is that we don't know, and, so long as we don't know, rich countries cannot claim to have the information they need to make sensible development policies.
See also
CGD is committed to understanding how the policies of rich countries affect the welfare and development prospects of poorer countries. Our work and the work of others suggests that rich countries' immigration policies have huge impacts on the lives of immigrants who move from developing to rich countries. We also know that immigration affects the lives of those left behind, with the massive increases in remittances in the past two decades the most visible manifestation of this. But there are other, less visible benefits of immigration that may be far more important to the welfare of sending countries than remittances. But, while we can cite anecdotes in support of these effects, we know almost nothing about their magnitudes. And without that, we cannot know how important immigration policy is as development policy.
To push the issue of better migration statistics, CGD convened the Migration Data for Development Commission to explore one key question: As the international migration debate heats up, what do policy makers need to know about the impact of migration on sending countries if they care about development? (Read the Migration Data Commission background note.) As an obvious corollary to this question the group will as well explore the current state of migration statistics, and what needs to be done to give researchers and policy makers the empirical base they need to assess migration's impact on sending countries. A forthcoming report from the commission will summarize its main conclusions and recommendations.
The group's policy impact will be measured by whether or not the OECD and/or other national and international statistical agencies take initial steps to improve the quality of international migration data, steps that would ideally include instituting routine collection of information on entries and exits that would permit "adding up" of the flows of people across countries (as is the case for trade in goods and services), including standardized definitions of "temporary" versus "permanent" migrants, as well as of major skill and labor categories. Basic measures of this type are an essential starting point for rigorous empirical research on the development effects of migration.
Leadership and Composition
The Migration Data for Development Commission is co-chaired by
- Professor Lawrence Summers, former chief economist at the World Bank and president of Harvard University
- Patricia Santo-Tomas, chair of the Development Bank of the Philippines
Commissioners include 14 other distinguished experts from a variety of international and academic organizations conducting migration research:
- Nancy Birdsall, Center for Global Development
- Richard Bilsborrow, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Michael Clemens, Center for Global Development
- Gero Carletto, World Bank
- Dennis de Tray, Center for Global Development
- Enrico Giovannini, OECD
- Michel Glaude, Eurostat
- Béla Hovy, United Nations
- Frank Laczko, International Organization for Migration
- Douglas Massey, Princeton University
- David McKenzie, World Bank
- Milena Novy-Marx, MacArthur Foundation
- Michel Poulain, Université Catholique de Louvain
- Hania Zlotnik, United Nations
Members serve in a personal capacity and on a voluntary basis.