Exodus: How Migration Is Changing Our World  

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Exodus: How Migration is Changing Our World (titled Exodus: Immigration and Multiculturalism in the 21st Century for its UK release) is a 2013 book by the development economist Paul Collier about the way migration affects migrants as well as the countries that send and receive the migrants, and the implications this has for development economics and the quest to end poverty.

Collier's book focuses on the challenges posed by the nexus of immigration and multiculturalism, and also claims that brain drain is one of the main, often overlooked, drawbacks of migration. According to Colin Kidd, Collier argues that Western immigration policy has been driven not by reason, but by emotional responses to postcolonial Western guilt "while stifling consideration of wider problems of global poverty."

Reception

Writing for The Guardian, Colin Kidd called the book "a humane and sensible voice in a highly toxic debate." Ian Birrell also reviewed the book for The Guardian, writing: "Given the evidence, Paul Collier's lively study of mass migration paints a curiously bleak picture of the future." Rupert Edis reviewed the book for The Telegraph, calling it "[a] frank dissection of the costs and benefits of immigration." David Goodhart reviewed the book for The Sunday Times, calling it a "hard-headed book that assesses the effect of the brain drain from poor countries to richer ones." Melanie McDonagh reviewed the book for The Spectator.

Robert Putnam, Malkin Professor of Public Policy, Harvard University reviewed the book saying: "Magisterial. Paul Collier offers a comprehensive, incisive, and well-written balance sheet of the pros and cons of immigration for receiving societies, sending societies, and migrants themselves. For everyone on every side of this contentious issue, Exodus is a must-read."

Robert Zoellick, former President of the World Bank Group, U.S. Trade Representative, and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, praised the book as a "true achievement" and wrote that Collier addressed "taboo topics to straightforward questions that most other scholars shrink from asking."

Ravi Mattu reviewed the book for Financial Times, concluding by writing: "Prof Collier’s is a voice to which it is worth paying attention. His book could be better written but this grandson of an immigrant is asking important questions about one of the world’s most pressing issues." A review of the book was also published in The Economist, concluding with the statement: "the tone of “Exodus” is problematic. Mr Collier finds endless objections to a policy—more or less unlimited immigration—that no country has adopted. In the process, he exaggerates the possible risks of mobility and underplays its proven benefits."

British commentator Kenan Malik reviewed the book in The Independent.

Michael Clemens and Justin Sandefur of the Center for Global Development (a Washington D.C.-based think tank) reviewed the book for the January/February 2014 issue of Foreign Affairs. They noted that many of Collier's conclusions were unsupported by research, and concluded as follows: "Collier laments the fact that the immigration debate has been marked by “high emotion and little knowledge.” That is true, yet Exodus exemplifies the problem. This book could have seriously engaged with the large literature on immigration and helped people without Collier’s training and position think through the complexities of the issue. Instead, Collier has written a text mortally wounded by incoherence, error, and overconfident leaps to baseless conclusions."

Blurb

Mass international migration is a response to extreme global inequality, and immigration has a profound impact on the way we live. Yet our views - and those of our politicians - remain caught between two extremes: popular hostility to migrants, tinged by xenophobia and racism; and the view of business and liberal elites that 'open doors' are both economically and ethically imperative. With migration set to accelerate, few issues are so urgently in need of dispassionate analysis - and few are more incendiary.Here, world-renowned economist Paul Collier seeks to defuse this explosive subject. Exodus looks at how people from the world's poorest societies struggle to migrate to the rich West: the effects on those left behind and on the host societies, and explores the impulses and thinking that inform Western immigration policy. Migration, he concludes, is a fact, and we urgently need to think clearly about its possibilities and challenges: it is not a question of whether migration is good or bad, but how much is best?

'Exodus is an important book and one I have been waiting to read for many years ... [it is] a work that is humane and hard-headed about one of the greatest issues of our times'David Goodhart, Sunday Times' Paul Collier is one of the world's most thoughtful economists. His books consistently illuminate and provoke. Exodus is no exception'The Economist 'Tinged with poignancy ... a humane and sensible voice in a highly toxic debate'Colin Kidd, Guardian'Paul Collier's new book on international migration is magisterial. It offers a sophisticated, comprehensive, incisive, multidisciplinary, well-written balance sheet of the pros and cons of immigration for receiving societies, sending societies, and migrants themselves. For everyone on all sides of this contentious issue, Exodus is a "must-read"'Robert D. Putnam, Professor of Public Policy, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University[Praise for Paul Collier's The Plundered Planet]: 'A must-read' Sunday Times'A path-breaking book' George Soros 'Paul Collier must be read if one is to begin to understand the most vital contemporary arguments' Bob Geldof

Notes by JWG, 9/20

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• Fehr, Ernst and Simon Gaechter (1999), 'Cooperation and punishment in public goods experiments', American Economic Review, 90, 980-94.

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