Migration and development

Are migration and development connected? Migration is as old as humanity whilst economic development is relatively recent. Early theories interpreted the movements of people across locations as aspects of a unique phenomenon – the modernization of the economy – while modern empirical studies search for their causal relationships. Among the later, the impact of development in low-income countries on migration to rich economies has taken center stage in the recent public and academic debate, and bears particularly important policy implications. Investigating the links going in the opposite direction, from migration to aspects of the economy connected to development, has produced diverse and in some cases robust findings. This chapter reviews the evolution through time of the search of the links between migration and development and the central points of the current debate.