In recent years, substantial numbers of people have migrated - or sought to migrate - from regions that are afflicted by poverty and insecurity to more prosperous and stable parts of the world. By the year 2000, the United Nations estimated that about 140 million persons - or roughly two percent of the world's population - resided in a country where they were not born.

Such population flows, involving increasingly tortuous and dangerous long-distance journeys, have been both prompted and facilitated by a variety of factors associated with the process of globalization: a growing disparity in the level of human security to be found in different parts of the world; improved transportation, communications and information technology systems; the expansion of transnational social networks; and the emergence of a commercial (and sometimes criminal) industry, devoted to the smuggling of people across international borders.

The conference will focus on two major themes: the economic consequences of immigration, and issues associated with asylum migration. It will seek to expand the focus of existing studies on the economic consequences of legal and illegal immigration to other host countries, to source countries, to place the economic study of immigration in a global context, and to enhance our understanding of those migratory movements that are undertaken for the purpose or with the consequence of seeking asylum in another state.

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Publications arising from this conference: research page