| Globalisation and migration |
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| Written by Tom Clougherty | |
| Tuesday, 21 November 2006 | |
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According to an editorial in yesterday's New York Times: "The political earthquake in Washington has knocked loose some of the big obstacles to fixing the US immigration system. A decent solution is now there for the taking, if President George W. Bush and the newly democratic congress are willing to grab it." The favoured reform - which may now have enough support to get through Congress - is a very pragmatic one. Essentially it involves tightening up on border controls so that the authorities can know who is entering and leaving the country. With security remaining a major concern this seems entirely sensible. The other element of the proposed reform is to grant some sort of amnesty to illegal immigrants already living and working in the country - bringing them out of the shadows of the black economy and into the tax net. Migration is an inevitable side-effect of globalisation and global migration has doubled in the last twenty years, with people generally moving from poor countries to richer ones. And although still not on as large a scale as it was before 1914, global migration is a very significant phenomenon. Of course, migration is the subject of a lot of scaremongering but the evidence suggests that most of our fears are unfounded. Diane Coyle, of Enlightenment Economics, addressed this issue at last week's IEA Political Economy Conference and what she had to say was very interesting. First of all, for all the talk of immigrants being a burden on the state, it should be noted that as a group immigrants in Britain are net contributors - i.e. they pay more in taxes than they take in benefits. Since most immigrants are of working age they improve our demography, which is becoming increasingly skewed towards the elderly. Secondly, there is no apparent link between unemployment and immigration. If you look at the ten OECD countries with the highest levels of immigration you will find that they all have lower than average unemployment. And if you look more broadly at all the OECD countries you will see a strong correlation between immigration and low unemployment. Furthermore, immigration seems to have had little real effect on wages and may even have helped to keep inflation down. So – immigration itself does not appear to be a problem, so long as sensible policies towards it are adopted. The proposals in the US are a good example of this, and such pragmatism could profitably be adopted this side of the Atlantic as well. |
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