Exceptional People

Ian Goldin, Geoffrey Cameron and Meera Balarajan argue that migrants have driven human progress, spreading ideas and technologies, sparking innovation, easing poverty and laying the groundwork for a global economy. The authors trace migration from the first human departures out of Africa some fifty thousand years ago to the present, when migrants link markets, fill labor gaps and add to social diversity, and when moving lets people escape destitution, rights abuses and repressive regimes. They contend that most current migration policy rests on misconceptions and fear, challenge the view that rising migration is undesirable, and propose new forms of governance, with practical recommendations for managing its risks and opportunities.

Nobel Prize winner Edmund S. Phelps praised it as a sweeping, constructive study that treats population movements as carriers of innovation between regions, and said that if anything can change how governments view immigration policy, it will.