Designing Immigration Policy

While the world is becoming more integrated through cheaper transport and communication, large income differences persist between rich and poor countries. As a result, the pressures to migrate from poor to rich countries are rising. Migration among rich countries and among poor countries is also on the rise. There are potential conflicts of interest between the migrants and the destination population, as well as between migrants and the source population.

The session focuses on the European Union as an instructive case. What reasonable policy guidelines should governments follow? What business strategies are useful in helping migration lead to prosperity and equality of opportunity? This session will identify options for policy makers in the EU as they strive to make Europe more attractive and open to high-skilled, internationally mobile individuals. The focus will be on recent proposals to issue a large number of "Blue Cards" that would give suitably qualified card holders access to the singe European labour market. The session will discuss the choice of admission criteria as well as possible conflicts of interest with migrants' home countries that might suffer a brain drain.