2011 Migration and Development Conference

2011 Conference Asks New Questions about the Role of Technology, Collaboration, and Expectations in Immigrants Decisions to Migrate

The 4th Annual Migration and Development Conference, sponsored by CID in partnership with the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies (Pop Center), the Agence Française de Développement (AFD), and the World Bank, was held on June 10th and 11th 2011 at the Harvard Kennedy School. The 2011 conference created a public space for academics and practitioners from around the world to present papers and engage in conversations around many topics in migration today.

Hillel Rapoport, one of the organizers and a CID Visiting Fellow from 2009-2011, described the conference saying “This was the 4th annual conference on migration and development, jointly sponsored by the French Development Agency (AFD) and the World Bank. Having a fourth conference is like passing adolescence and becoming mature, and this is exactly what this conference brought about: establishing the scientific network, opening it to include many Cambridge-based researchers, and getting a sense of scientific maturity as a research network on an important and exciting development issue.”

The dialogue in this 4th Conference focused again on the linkages between development and migration but asked new questions about the role mobile technology plays in migration, how the opportunity for international collaboration might increase or decrease migration of skilled professionals, whether migrants from the developing world have realistic expectations of expected salaries or not, and more. Presenters and discussants came from as close as Harvard, Tufts, and MIT and as far as California, France and the Netherlands. Panels focused on the different quasi-experimental methods available for use with different kinds of data, migration in an historical context, migration and macroeconomics, migration and health, temporary versus permanent migration, and more.

The conference had two keynote lectures, which were given by Harvard University professor Edward Glaeser and Brown University professor Oded Galor. Glaeser addressed the role – both positive and negative – that cities play in migration. Acknowledging that cities create spaces where disease or pollution spread rapidly he also argued that cities are a space for innovation and human capital exchange. People move to cities because of the many opportunities they create and as we move forward, he argued, the positive and negative aspects of cities will need to be fully considered in policy decisions.

Galor presented on genetic diversity, migration, and economic development. He spoke about how genetic diversity in the indigenous populations decreased as people moved further and further from East Africa. He argued there is an optimal level of genetic diversity that is correlated with growth and that the US’ level of population diversity is close to that optimum. However, he cautioned against the simplistic argument that this kind of diversity could then be reached through migration.

This year’s conference effectively incorporated many PhD students as discussants and even presenters – including several affiliated with the CID. The students offered insightful comments and criticisms to many of the papers and acted as an interesting and useful voice for questions and clarifications.

The conference concluded with a policy panel that aimed to better understand what avenues are available in the policy sphere moving forward. One central issue is how to keep development as a central component of that conversation in US and European policy circles.