Migration & Urbanisation

Evidence from Brazil shows that an air interdiction policy in 2004 shifted cocaine routes to rivers, increasing violence in Amazonian municipalities.

In Guinea, providing information about the risks of migration journeys corrects overly optimistic beliefs and significantly reduces irregular migration intentions and behaviour among young people, without discouraging regular migration.

Since the 1990s, high-skilled migrants from Asia have played a pivotal role in meeting US demand in technology, healthcare, and higher education, contributing to innovation, productivity growth, and improved services across the economy. Restricting these flows may not protect domestic workers as intended, but instead risk reducing long-term competitiveness and shifting talent and cutting-edge activity to other countries.

Refugee flows are increasingly structural rather than temporary, and while most refugees remain in neighbouring low- and middle-income countries, evidence from high-income settings shows that early, well-sequenced integration policies make a decisive difference. Granting swift access to work, investing in language training and job matching, and aligning placement with labour market demand can turn short-term fiscal pressures into long-term economic gains for both refugees and host economies.

New evidence from Chile finds that in-situ slum upgrading – combining physical infrastructure improvements with the formalisation of land tenure within the slum – delivers larger gains in local economic development, both within treated slums and in s...

Exposure to less restrictive reproductive health policies via international migration leads to lower fertility in origin communities through the diffusion of new knowledge, preferences, and behaviour.

Children are ubiquitous in African cities but largely absent from development economics research. Here’s what we know about children’s schooling once they’ve moved to the city.