China has witnessed the largest labor migration since the reform and opening up policies were implemented. According to the most recent statistics, the total number of rural to urban migrant workers reached 136 million. Migrants are defined as persons who have left out of township for more than...

In this paper, I examine high-income country motives for restricting immigration. Abundant evidence suggests that allowing labor to move from low-income to high-income countries would yield substantial gains in global income. Yet, most high-income countries impose strict limits on labor inflows...

Jharkhand state is carved out from Bihar state in 2000. The state is rich in mineral resources and poor in agricultural production. More than 75% of work force is engaged in agriculture, but generates only 20% of state’s GDP. About 45% area is under non-agricultural use and 32% is culturable...

This paper contains three important contributions to the literature on international migrations. First, it compiles a new dataset on migration flows and stocks and on immigration laws for 14 OECD destination countries and 74 sending countries for each year over the period 1980-2005. Second, it...

We study potential economic benefits of immigration stemming from two factors: first, that immigrants bring not only their labor supply with them, but also their consumption demands; and second, that immigrants may have a comparative advantage in the production of ethnic goods. Using data on the...

Large numbers of doctors, engineers, and other skilled workers from developing counties choose to move to other countries. Do their choices threaten development? The answer appears so obvious that their movement is most commonly known by the pejorative term “brain drain”. This paper...

About three percent of the world’s 6.1 billion people were international migrants in 2000. Population growth is expected to slow between 2000 and 2050 in comparison to 1950-2000, but international migration is expected to rise as persisting demographic and economic inequalities that motivate...

This paper explores the human development implications of circular migration — both where it occurs naturally and where governments work to create it. The paper discusses various conceptions and definitions of circular migration, and concludes that circular migration is not intrinsically...

This paper presents an internationally comparable assessment of several dimensions of migration policies as of early 2009. For a selected set of 28 countries, both developed and developing, we analyse the admission criteria, policies on integration and treatment of migrants, and efforts to...

Intermediaries are key actors that facilitate, and sometimes drive, migration within and across borders. By providing information and extending critical services in many stages of migration and in places of origin, transit and destination, legitimate intermediaries build migrants’ capabilities...