Five Questions on International Migration and Development

Abstract

The movement of people in search of better economic conditions and a more secure environment is as old as human history. Such movements not only profoundly affect the lives of the migrants, but also lead to significant economic and social transformations in migrants' countries of origin and destination. In recent years, a significant increase in the growth of international migration and remittance flows and in awareness of their development impact has led to a resurgence of interest by academics, policymakers, and analysts in what has been referred to as the third leg of globalization (the other two being international trade and international capital flows).

The renewed interest in international migration led the World Bank Development Research Group to initiate the Research Program on International Migration and Development in 2003. More recently, the Research Department of the Agence française de Développement (AFD) and the World Bank Development Research Group have collaborated on several research projects and conferences. This symposium issue gathers some of the papers presented at the Second International Migration and Development Conference, held at the World Bank in Washington, DC, on September 10–11, 2009. The success of the conference series and the commitment of the World Bank and AFD to sponsoring the conferences reflect the recognition by international development agencies and the academic community of the importance of international migration to the development agenda.

The five articles in this symposium issue fall into two groups. A first group of three articles deal with the measurement, determinants, and political effects of international migration. A new global bilateral migration database for 1960–2000 ( Özden and others 2011) updates and extends the Parsons and others (2007) database back to 1960.