As Vipul recently noted, one of the biggest questions surrounding open borders is just how many people would move to a new country. The estimates of doubling world GDP rely on this being a very large number. On the other hand, large numbers of immigrants moving to the first world also increase the concerns surrounding political externalities or the overpopulation and environment effects of migration. The number of immigrants who decide to move can potentially have important consequences for good or ill. At the same time precise estimates of how many people might move are likely to be impossible. We should probably expect at best to come to basic estimates.
But one way to help with that is to receive a multitude of informed opinions on the question and thus I come to you dear readers!
Since examining the entire world at once with this question is likely to be extremely complex, let’s use a particular country as an example: Haiti. Let’s get some basic facts about Haiti down as a way of making this task easier. Haiti’s current population is slightly under 10 million people with about a 1% growth rate under current birth/death/migration rates. The country currently has one of the highest emigration rates in the world at 5.5 people out of every 1000 leaving every year. Current income is also one of the world’s lowest with GDP per capita (purchasing power parity) at about $1,300 a year. This helps contribute to Haiti being one of the countries with the highest wage ratios with the US in a paper written by Michael Clemens meaning the potential economic gain to migrants is among the greatest (see page 11). The United States is home to currently over 500,000 Haitians with most in Florida and New York. According to Gallup polls, about a quarter of the adult Haitian population would like to migrate to the United States in particular. That would be about 1.5 million people (including everyone over the age of 15 as “adults” which depending on Gallup’s definition of adult is likely an overestimate, but then not including any children these migrants may wish to bring).
So my question to readers, if the United States were to open its borders tomorrow how many Haitians do you think would come here? Would everyone expressing an interest come or would economic factors stop them? Would the opening of borders increase how many would want to come? If other developed countries were to open their borders how many Haitians would that draw away from coming to the United States? And how much of a difference would at least partially French-speaking countries like France, Belgium, or Canada opening immigration have on drawing Haitians away from the US? Finally, would there be a difference in the amount of Haitian migration if the US opens its borders generally or if the borders are opened for only Haiti in particular? And would this emigration be a solution for Haiti’s numerous problems?
Hi Chris, I think trying to analyze a human migration based on one time event like sudden open of US border to Haitians, might not provide accurate result. If you open the US border tomorrow then definitely majority of Haitian will migrate and the only ones remaining behind will be the ones who cannot afford the cost of moving or have some other very strong reason to stay. But, that number will be minimal. And this event would not be beneficial to either US or Haiti as US would suffer from sudden increase in unemployment and Haiti would lose most of its labor force from which it might be hard to recover from. So, to prevent this, it has to be a gradual change.
We can take an example of Peurto Rico. Peurto Ricans are US citizens and could move to New York tomorrow. So, why aren’t they doing so. That is because they know they can go in and out of US anytime they please and over 3 millions people have decided to stay in Peurto Rico and not move to US. The same should happen in Haiti’s case. Once Haitians realize they can go in and out of US anytime, some will move but not all. But this has to be done is a gradual process cause it takes time to sink in the notion that they now have the freedom of movement.
Puerto Rico might be a useful natural experiment here. See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Ricans_in_the_United_States. It looks like about 30% or so of those born on Puerto Rico have moved to the US. Since Haiti is poorer than Puerto Rico, emigration would probably be somewhat higher.
I have found the following data:
2 million Haitians in the Dominican Republic
200,000 in Canada (or maybe only 100,000), mostly in Quebec
80,000 in the Bahamas
80,000 in France of whom about 20,000 seem to be in the overseas departments.
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_diaspora
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_diaspora#Canada
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_ha%C3%AFtienne_en_France (in French)
I tried to find out how many Haitians live in Germany. According to the embassy it is only 400.
Source: http://www.morgenpost.de/berlin/article1238990/Haitianer-bangen-gemeinsam-in-Berlin.html (in German)
In Switzerland there are 456 Haitians. There is, of course, a francophone part of Switzerland and the Swiss are much better at French than Germans.
Source: http://www.20min.ch/news/dossier/haiti/story/12369509 (in German)
In Belgium there are 1,500 to 2,000 Haitians according to the embassy there.
Source: http://www.lalibre.be/actu/international/reunion-de-famille-pour-les-haitiens-de-belgique-51b8b560e4b0de6db9b9b205 (in French)
I don’t have the slightest idea of how hard it is to get into these countries for Haitians relatively. But it looks like geographical proximity and linguistic affiliation explain a substantial part of the pattern.
So maybe if Germany opened its borders for Haitians it would only be trickle (at least at first). I’d think this goes both ways. Whereas Americans would perhaps name Haiti as a desperately poor country that immediately comes to mind, hardly anyone would do this in Germany. Here the response would be something like Sahel or Bangladesh or maybe even India.
These are thought-provoking questions, Chris, and they are difficult to answer given the lack of good data that’d be pertinent. One question upon question I would pose is, what data do we need to even start answering these questions?
Given what I do know, which is that Gallup polling number, I would place my estimate of how many Haitians would come, under any open borders scenario, as pretty close to the 1.5M number. It’d be biased upward or downward based on the type of scenario, but I can’t imagine the 1.5M number being off by an order of magnitude (though, I guess, 15M Haitians is a literally impossible number).
The main reason I think that number is a good estimate is just the magnitude of the wage gaps. The place premium between Haiti and the US is so high that even if a Haitian were free to migrate elsewhere, it’s difficult to see why they wouldn’t choose the US. It’s difficult for me to imagine the place premium being substantially similar for the Haiti-France pairing, though I could potentially imagine the Haiti-Canada pairing working out, given geographical proximity. I think linguistic proximity would attenuate the number of Haitians bound for the US somewhat, but not really enough to make a significant dent in that 1.5M number. The significant diaspora in the US would I think be a big draw for Haitians too, reducing the cultural barriers to immigration.
If the US opened its borders to all, again I believe that would attenuate the 1.5M number downward (there would be some crowding out of potential Haitian migrants, no doubt), but not significantly. Few countries really have much worse place premiums than Haiti does compared to the US. And again, geographical proximity is unparalleled; most Haitians in the world are literally a boat ride away from the US.
If the US opened its borders only to Haiti, I would be pretty firm on the 1.5M number — though I could see that number going up a bit, because I imagine Haitians would feel some warm glow at being the only country in the world embraced as such by the US, and would feel more positively disposed towards giving working/living in the US a try.