In The News

Migrant Power

January 19, 2007
A new World Bank report shows that migration remains a significant force in Eastern Europe and Central Asia almost two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall. While the initial surge of migration in the 1990s was due to ethnic reconsolidation, there has been a growing movement of workers seeking economic opportunity from the region’s poorer nations. According to the report, the remittances...

An Immigration Raid Aids Blacks – For a Time

Evan Perez January 18, 2007
After federal agents raided chicken and meat processors in 2006, many immigrant workers fled their jobs. In rural Georgia, one company raised wages by $1 and recruited local workers, most African Americans. Since then, company officials have had to deal with more complaints about work conditions, pay disputes and workplace rights, reports this article in “The Wall Street Journal.” Injury rates...

Technology, Not Globalization, Is Driving Wages Down

Jagdish Bhagwati January 10, 2007
Confronting wage stagnation, US labor groups blame trade and immigration from developing countries. But economic research does not support the assertion that competition with developing nations reduces either wages or bargaining power, argues Columbia University professor Jagdish Bhagwali of Columbia University. If anything, ongoing technological innovations reduce the need for unskilled labor,...

Migranomics Instead of Walls

Ernesto Zedillo January 4, 2007
Illegal immigration stirs resentment against immigration in general. Yet enforcement alone – building giant walls, adding border patrols, requiring new forms of identification – will not stop illegal immigration, points out Ernesto Zedillo, director of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization. For a nation in need of willing workers, immigration contributes to prosperity and the ability to...

5.5M Britons “Opt to Live Abroad”

Dominic Casciani December 26, 2006
If not for immigration, the UK would experience a drop in population, considering about 10 percent of British citizens choose to live abroad. Both young and retired Brits try living overseas, and most are professionals. "Britain is truly at the crossroads of the global movement of people," said Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah, a co-author of the report for the Institute of Public Policy...

The Challenge of Global Health

Laurie Garrett December 20, 2006
Wealthy nations and their citizens donate billions in cash to end AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and some other high-profile problems in the developing world. But with uncoordinated programs, lacking in sustainability and long-term planning, the fast flow of cash could make problems worse, not better, argues health analyst and author Laurie Garrett. Studies have shown that focusing on high-profile...

Thailand's Cynical Ploy on Burmese Migrant Workers

Kavi Chongkittavorn December 13, 2006
About 600,000 illegal workers, most from Burma and the rest from Laos and Cambodia, work in Thai factories for about one third of regular wage rates. The Thai government offered to legalize migrant workers from Burma, with the condition that they return first to their homeland and verify citizenship. Such a condition amounts to a death sentence in Burma, a nation under rule of a military junta,...