International Migration and International Trade

This paper reviews the major types of international migration and recent global and regional trends in population movements, as well as conceptual issues and recent trends in the volume of remittance flows. The paper further considers the extent to which trade, aid and development can be expected to stem future migration flows, the role of international migration in trade in services, and implications for future research. Migration flows are heavily concentrated in a few world regions and are increasingly volatile and unpredictable, with political as well as economic causes and consequences. While there is general consensus that flows of capital and goods should be free, there is no such agreement on the movement of people. Little is known about the extent to which national policies toward in-migration impede trade in services; a survey of firms across selected industries might shed light on this issue. There is also little documentation of the economic and trade consequences in countries with policies to train workers for international export. The adoption of measures to address the potential for migration from Central and Eastern Europe offer new opportunities to understand interactions amongst migration, trade, aid, investment, and development, as do the " turnaround cases " (e.g. italy, Spain, Portugal) of countries that have shifted or are shifting from areas of emigration to ones of immigration.