Sustainability and Migration in Small Island Economies: Issues in New Caledonia

Migration plays an important role in small island economies. It can be examined from two complementary and intertwined perspectives: on one hand, external migration affects paths of growth through fund transfers made by international migrants; on the other, internal migrations shape geographical and sectorial equilibria. These two approaches merge and complement one another in examining the case of New Caledonia. In this contribution, the debate on the effects of migration on the sustainability of small island economies is revisited. In the first part, we discuss issues and models of migrations in small island economies. In the second part, we establish, based on the New Caledonian example, that migration can also play a positive role in the sustainability of economic growth.