A review of "Exodus"

Allow me to share some portions of "Exodus, how migration is changing our world", by Paul Collier. A book that I consider is a mandatory reading for any diplomat that represent countries with high migration.

• Migration has been politicized before it has been analyzed.
• Trade is better than no trade, and the movement of capital is better than complete financial immobility.
• But democratic political institutions only function well if ordinary citizens are sufficiently well informed to discipline politicians.
• The rate of migration is determined by the width of the gap, the level of income in countries of origin, and the size of the diaspora .
• Trust and cooperation. A country is poor by lack of trust and cooperation.
• Three influences on migration: the composition of the diaspora, the attitudes of migrants and the attitudes and policies of host countries.
• In America migrants have significantly lower rates of criminality than the indigenous population. Four reasons: culture, opportunities, demographic and social bonds.
• The clue is skill immigration.
• Modern migration has economic effects on the indigenous population that in the short and medium term are marginal.
• Migrants are both the big economic winners and the big economic losers form migration.
• The decision to migrate is not truly a decision of the migrant, but of the migrant family.
• While the multinational companies are predominantly anchored in high-income countries, the multinational families are predominantly anchored in low-income ones.
• Migrants compete head-to-head not with low-skill indigenous workers but with each others.
• Successful migrants become role model for others to emulate.
• There is solid evidence that remittances to most countries would be increased were the migration policies of host countries somewhat more restrictive.
• The economic effects are dominated by the brain drain and remittances.
• Migration for overpopulated rural areas is ultimately the big engine of development.
• The most likely role of international migration as a catalyst is as a transmission channel for ideas.
• While migration does not make nations obsolete, the continued acceleration of migration in conjunction with a policy of multiculturalism might potentially threaten their viability.
• The most beneficial migration is not permanent exodus but temporary migration for higher education.
• Climate change is not the only policy that needs long-term thinking!
• Mass international migration is a response to extreme global inequality, not a permanent feature of globalization, it is a temporary response to an ugly phase in which prosperity has not yet globalized.

Washington DC, 17SEP014.