Everything you've ever wanted to know about migration policy

Long before Donald Trump referred to Mexican migrants as 'bad hombres', migration was a perennially hot topic in economic and social policy. Some of the endlessly debated question in this space include: do migrants hurt the labour market prospects of locals by taking away jobs and depressing wages? Or do they instead create more opportunities by bringing capital and spurring economic activity? Is there a difference in effects between skilled and unskilled migrants? What about refugees? Do temporary visa schemes for seasonal labour solves more problems than they create? What about a points-based migration system like the way they have in Australia? Here to answer all these questions and more, including what we can learn about migration from observing the pacific, is Dr Ryan Edwards  from the Australian National University. Ryan is deputy director of the development policy centre, and was formerly a postdoc at Stanford and Dartmouth. This is a million-mile a minute episode that will answer your questions and then some. 

Grattan Institute reports on migration policy: https://grattan.edu.au/migration-and-labour-markets/ 

Clemens, M. A. (2011). Economics and Emigration: Trillion-Dollar Bills on the Sidewalk? Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 25, no. 3, pp. 83–106. https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.25.3.83 

Elinor Ostrom’s (Nobel Prize Winner) Magnum Opus Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. TOC and First chapter: https://www.burmalibrary.org/docs20/Ostrom-1990-governing_the_commons.pdf? 

(Nobel Prize Winners) Banerjee, A. and Duflo, E. (2019). Good Economics for Hard Times: Better Answers to Our Biggest Problems. Penguin.  

Bahar, D. and Rappaport, H. (2018). Migration, Knowledge Diffusion, and the Comparative Advantage of Nations. The Economic Journal, vol. 128, no. 612, pp. F273–F305

Dustman, C. and Görlach, J. (2016). The Economics of Temporary Migration. Journal of Economic Literature, vol. 54, no. 1, pp. 98–136

Fifer McIntosh, M. (2008). Measuring the Labor Market Impacts of Hurricane Katrina Migration: Evidence from Houston, Texas. American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings, vol. 98, no. 2, pp. 54 – 57

D’Amuri, F. and Peri, G. (2014). Immigration, Jobs, and Employment Protection: Evidence from Europe Before and During the Great Recession. Journal of the European Economic Association, vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 432–464 

Breunig, R., Deutscher, N. and To, H. T. (2017). The Relationship Between Immigration to Australia and the Labour Market Outcomes of Australian-Born Workers. Economic Record, vol. 93, no. 301, pp. 255–276     

Dustman, C., Schönberg, U. and Stuhler, J. (2016). The Impact of Immigration: Why Do Studies Reach Such Different Results? Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 30, no. 4, pp. 31–56. https://www-aeaweb-org.ezp.lib.cam.ac.uk/articles?id=10.1257/jep.30.4.31 

Clemens, M. and Hunt, J. (2019). The Labour Market Effects of Refugee Waves: Reconciling Conflicting Results. ILR Review, vol. 72, no. 4, pp. 818–857