q1: why, given their historical importance, are labour, migration & remittances frequently...
TRANSCRIPT
• Q1: Why, given their historical importance, are labour, migration & remittances frequently excluded from analyses of globalisation and IPE? (Sutcliffe)
• Q2: Is the current situation unsustainable? Where will the ageing OECD service economies get their labour? Why the political (electoral…) contradictions? (Bhagwati)
• Q3: What are the implications for global inequalities, poverty & “development” policies (remittances & impact on both home and host economies, World Bank ‘11)
1. Migration in an historical perspective:
• Historical ‘Factor Mobility’ (World Bank/WDR 09) slavery, indentured, outward
• European migration, 19-20c; push vs pull factors
• Post-45, ‘Fordist’ migration
• 1990s service sector labour patterns (Sassen).
Remittances:
• Definitions
• Forgetting history ?
(e.g. Eire, Italy, Spain)
• Sources: World Bank,
• Ratha – Links, BLE
Trends
• The problems of measurement: Official statistics. World Bank 2009 WDR
• WB $530 bn 2012?, LDCs = $406 bn Guesstimates, $700bn? Goods in kind.
• Unofficial channels: Money Transfer (eg Western Union), cash, Hawala
Trends (cont.)
• Escape state (banks, neo-liberal), a colossal, small number of transactions
• Immensely profitable – Citibank-Mexico, advertising campaigns,
• “Difficult” to research? Ask your migrant neighbours… – Guardian, 31.01.13 – link on plan/moodle
How important are remittances?
• Relative to other finance (private capital, aid, FDI)? (See fig.1, World Bank Nov 2012)
• Source of foreign exchange, crucial means of debt payment, counter-cyclical?
• Rising and stable (crisis?) source of finance; borrowing & bonds (Latin America)
• Main recipients: Absolute terms / Remittances as % of GDP (Following slides, WB 2011)
Policy implications:
• Shifting perceptions of:• impact on peoples’ lives within “development” policy• on foreign exchange earnings and reserves, as well as govt
finance,
Home govts: “new realism”: Uganda, Kenya, Ghana
Bonds, Securitization (Mexico, Turkey, Brazil) India, Incentives: dual nationality (NRI); vote; investment
(generational change) bank, tax reforms,
Social capital and infrastructure. (Somali tels,• Hometown assns)
• Negative remittances; war, conflict; distribution, gender, elites, social obligation
• Host govts: reducing costs, regulation (security?), reforming aid.
• Focus on reduction of costs – since 2005 DfID, WB site
• The aid industry and diasporas – DfID vs Home Office
• Towards “joined-up” govt? – “Brain drains” and UK labour needs
Policy implications?
• Towards “joined-up” govt? – “Brain drains” and UK labour needs
– Policy argument: Manage migration to: – i) enhance development; – ii) rethink “aid”, its agencies and mentalities; – iii) accept migration & remitting as “global
social security”?