Are There Preferable Alternatives to International Migration as an Aid to Economic Development?

Abstract

I interpret the question which has been posed as pertaining to alternative ways to achieve higher per capita incomes; and I use ‘economic development’ as a short phrase to designate this objective, without, of course, implying that other elements, such as a lessening of inequality, may not also be involved commonly in the concept of progress. The test of the behaviour of average per capita income somewhat simplifies the further question ‘to whom preferable’ by ignoring the conflicting interests of groups within a national economy. But if migration raises average per capita incomes in one country and lowers them in another, the conflict of economic interest cannot be ignored and can only be resolved by the automatic working of the market or by some supra-national authority.