Migration and development

Although the nature and causes of countries’ wealth and development was the first and fundamental question early economists attempted to answer, centuries it is still actively researched. Furthermore, migration – despite being as old as humanity – is one of the highly debated topics of our times. The links between the two phenomena are the subject of this chapter. Early economists described the movements of people between locations and the processes of ‘modernization’ of the economy as parts of the same phenomenon. In modern general equilibrium theory, factor movements and growth are linked through several channels. Empirical research focuses on these channels and the causal relationships between migration and development. In recent decades, the main aspect under scrutiny has been the relationship linking development in low- and middle-income countries to emigration towards rich and developed destinations. This chapter reviews the main aspects of this research, its origins, its still open results, and its potential future developments.