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Independent research & practical ideas for global prosperity
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Independent research & practical ideas for global prosperity
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 Posts:March 18, 2010Why a Careful Evaluation of the Millennium Villages Is Not OptionalBy Michael Clemens
Over the years I’ve been critical of the Millennium Villages, in soundbites trotted out periodically by the Financial Times and New York Times. Here I want to explain what lies behind those soundbites. I hope the MVP will consider these points as they revise their evaluation practices this year and continue to scale up the project. Read More… 8 Comments »March 3, 2010Three Cheers for Colombian Court’s Upholding Presidential Term LimitsBy Michael ClemensOn Friday the Constitutional Court of Colombia ruled that President Alvaro Uribe cannot change the constitution (again) to seek an additional term as president. This is a victory for Colombia’s long-term development, regardless of how good a president Uribe is. It is an example to the entire developing world. Last year I worried that Colombia would fall into the same trap that so many other developing countries have—endlessly changing the constitution to keep popular leaders in office. So many countries have done this that it would not be an exaggeration to call it a plague. In Africa alone, it has happened twelve times in the past decade. Colombia deserves better. I lived in Colombia and love the country, and I want it to realize its vast potential. Read More… 3 Comments »January 25, 2010Reactions to My Proposal for a New Visa to the United StatesBy Michael ClemensMore Fresh Ideas for Haiti
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Yesterday in the Washington Post I proposed a new kind of visa, a Golden Door Visa. It would ensure that at least a few of our immigration slots go to people from the poorest countries, such as Haiti, people who need opportunity the most. Predictably, I’ve been flooded with vicious personal attacks, both private and public. My inbox has burst with emails like this one, whose author concealed his or her identity: 11 Comments »January 11, 2010Development in the Year of Immigration Reform: New VideoBy Michael ClemensHow can someone outside Haiti raise the income of a person who is very poor in Haiti? The fastest, surest, biggest way is simply to let that person work outside Haiti for some period, in a rich country. My co-authors and I document that a 35 year old urban male with some secondary schooling, born and educated in Haiti, earns a standard of living at least six times greater on average in the United States than the same person earns in Haiti. Read More… 1 Comment »December 10, 2009Prescription for Hypocrisy: The Tough Ethics of International Doctor MigrationBy Michael ClemensThe British Medical Association just released a new statement on the international migration of health workers. Sadly, it repeats a common, self-contradictory, profoundly unethical position on international high-skill migration. It starts off well. The Association states that “every health professional has a right to migrate to seek work wherever they wish for professional or personal reasons”, and thus “measures to restrict the movement of health personnel may be unethical.” How magnanimous for a professional guild to seemingly favor competition from abroad! Read More… 1 Comment »June 22, 2009One Small Way to Fix the World: Welcome Guest WorkersBy Michael Clemens
1 Comment »June 4, 2009Beyond the Fence: Fresh Ideas on How Immigration Policy Shapes Global DevelopmentBy Michael ClemensNext week, President Obama will meet with Congress to begin discussing changes in the way that the United States regulates who can enter this country and what they can do here. The elephant in the room: global development. U.S. immigration policy transforms the lives of low-income people from all over the world, but you won’t hear much about them. Read More… 2 Comments »May 21, 2009Don’t Do It, Colombia! Presidential Term Limits Are Good for Development, But EndangeredBy Michael ClemensHow long should presidents rule? On Tuesday, Colombia’s senate approved a national referendum to amend the constitution—again—to allow the popular president Alvaro Uribe to stand for election next year to yet another term in office. Read More… 2 Comments »February 17, 2009Solve the Crisis by…Kicking Out the World’s Best and Brightest?By Michael ClemensThe global economic crisis is already creating pressure for the United States to further restrict skilled migration. The economic stimulus act that President Obama signs today limits the ability of many companies receiving stimulus money to freely employ highly skilled foreign workers on H-1B visas. (Read the Act yourself here.) In other words: If we can just kick out of the United States enough bright and highly skilled workers, many of them top U.S.-trained students from developing countries, the crisis will somehow ease. 8 Comments »October 31, 2008Glaring U.S. Absence at the Global Forum on Migration and DevelopmentBy Michael ClemensI spoke this week at the Global Forum on Migration and Development here in Manila, at both the government meetings and the civil society days. I came here to highlight the many policy questions about migration and development that can’t even be asked until we have better data on human movement. As I’ve carped about before, it is much easier to gather statistics on the cross-border travels of coffee beans and toothbrushes than it is to count the international movement of maids and physicians. 1 Comment »October 3, 2008One of The Biggest Blind Spots in Global Development: Data on MovementBy Michael ClemensDoing research on migration and development is tough. Some of the most basic questions can’t even get off the whiteboard because data on migration are so limited. If the government of Kenya wants to know how many doctors went last year from Nairobi to London, or vice versa, no one can tell. If a hard-working economist wants to know how many Pakistanis have temporary labor contracts in the Gulf countries, good luck. 1 Comment »September 22, 2008Crisis? Not If We Take a Long View (Development Impacts of Financial Crisis)By Michael Clemens
5 Comments »September 8, 2008Migration and Development: CGD Visiting Fellow John Gibson Wins NZIER Economics AwardBy Michael Clemens
In my circles John is best known for his pioneering work on the New Zealand visa lottery with David McKenzie and Steven Stillman — arguably the best natural experiment in economic research on migration and development. This paper is now forthcoming in the Journal of the European Economic Association. It is the first successful attempt in economics to measure the true, pure effect on the wages of someone from a poor country from working in a rich country, purged of all migrant “selection” by a brilliant research design. Comment »August 25, 2008Do You Have Your Job because of Your Merit or Your DNA? For Many Migrants from Poor Countries, DNA Makes the DifferenceBy Michael ClemensIf you’re not a black person, suppose you were. Suppose you were also born in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward, which was already in poverty before it was devastated by Hurricane Katrina. So you sought to better your life by getting a job in Chicago. But then US government officials forced you not to take the job, because DNA tests proved that you are not closely related to any white person. 2 Comments »August 5, 2008If Congress Admits More Foreign Nurses, Will It Be Responsible for Killing Children in Poor Countries? Think Again.By Michael ClemensA subcommittee of the U.S. Congress has just approved a bill that would let modestly more foreign nurses work in the United States. New York Times reporters are concerned that measures like this, by encouraging movement of nurses out of developing countries that need them, could literally kill children. Today, the World Health Organization agrees that health worker movements contribute to disease and death in poor countries. 1 Comment »July 1, 2008On Zimbabwe: How Do the Worst Leaders Affect Development?By Michael ClemensOne of the great underexplored areas in economic development research is rigorous investigation of how bad leaders affect development. A series of actions by Robert Mugabe’s regime have coincided with an epic collapse of Zimbabwe’s economy, erasing half a century of income growth and bringing on four million percent inflation. In a country where large numbers of poor people live on the edge of subsistence, such a collapse is likely to cause large numbers of deaths. But how can we really know that Mugabe is the cause of his people’s ills, when his mouthpieces claim that drought or shadowy foreign meddling is at fault? Read More… 2 Comments »May 27, 2008Let’s Do the Numbers: CGD Launches Commission on Migration Data for Development ResearchBy Michael ClemensWhat is the biggest distortion in the world economy? A forty-percent price gap for identical widgets traded in two different markets is considered large these days. In capital markets, investors would be shocked by a price difference of one percent for the same security in two different exchanges. But in the global labor market, wage gaps for equivalent workers differ between countries by one thousand percent or more in some cases. 1 Comment »January 28, 2008The Best Provocative, Short Read on Migration And DevelopmentBy Michael ClemensHarvard professor and CGD colleague Lant Pritchett has given a stunning interview to Reason magazine that will be a revelation if you haven’t yet been exposed to Pritchett’s incandescent ideas on migration and development. Below are selected quotations from Pritchett in the interview. 2 Comments »January 11, 2008Media Reports on African ‘Brain Drain’ Misunderstand My ResearchBy Michael ClemensThis week I watched with a queasy stomach as my own research was widely reported in support of a belief that is the exact opposite of my findings. Citing a new journal article of mine, yesterday the BBC trumpeted that Africa is “being drained of doctors”, and a separate story on BBC’s French-language service implied that health professional emigration is directly responsible for deaths of Africans. (Radio France did a better job.) 11 Comments »December 6, 2007Buy a Beer in Zimbabwe — You’ll Need ItBy Michael ClemensWhat’s it like to live in a country whose economy has been shattered by its own leaders? Here’s how a beer purchase in Zimbabwe looks these days:
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If you could do one thing to make the world a better place, where would you start? The current issue of The Atlantic suggests 
When you’re done reading today’s news stories about the crisis, take a deep breath. Media coverage is focused on the very short term, as usual. Speculation abounds that we live in a different world now. I’m reminded of portentous claims after the Asian Financial Crisis that “the miracle was over”, claims which look very overwrought in hindsight. In historical perspective, many of the most worrisome recent crises are small bumps on a very long road.
John Gibson
