Move inside the “Bell Jar”: A Property Rights Approach to the Skills of Migrants
| Date | 01 December 2018 |
| Author | Stefan Schlegel |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12499 |
| Published date | 01 December 2018 |
Move inside the “Bell Jar”: A Property Rights
Approach to the Skills of Migrants
Stefan Schlegel*
ABSTRACT
This article develops the idea that control over somebody’s migration can be understood as a
property right. In the context of migration and development, this means (1) that skills of
migrants can be explained as a function of access to property rights; and (2) that the possibili-
ties of investing in these skills could be improved by giving migrants access to property rights
over their own migration. Compared with efforts to formalize property rights within develop-
ing economies, access to the property right over migration has the important advantage that its
value does not depend on the (often dysfunctional) institutions of the country of origin.
INTRODUCTION
Our view on a slum changes radically if we no longer think of it as a community of marginalized
people who lack the skills to take part in the economy and improve their lot, but as a place poten-
tially rife with opportunities for its inhabitants if the property rights over the factors of production
within that slum (like land and labour force) were defined and allocated in such a way that the
inhabitants could invest in them. In this article, I hope to contribute to a similar change of view on
low-skilled migration. I defend the idea that control over an individual’s migration can be under-
stood as a property right just like land titles in a slum and that access to these property rights might
well be an important incentive –and indeed, in many cases a precondition for potential migrants –
to acquire skills that are sought after in potential receiving countries. As with other factors of pro-
duction, the possibilities for potential migrants to invest in the factor of production “migration”
depend on the access to property rights over it. The thinner the bundle of potential migrants’rights
regarding their own migration, the harder it is for them to invest in their human capital (on which
the value of their migration and the property right that grants control over it partly depends).
Migration law, in this view, is concerned with the allocation of property rights over migration and
the question of whether or not potential migrants have access to these property rights.
The two hypotheses –that access to legal migration is access to a property right and that this
access is decisive for the possibility of investing in acquiring skills –can link two of the most
interesting debates in development studies, namely, the debate on the effect of the formalization of
property rights and the debate on migration as a tool for development. I follow Sen’s (2001) con-
cept of development, understanding it as the improvement of the ability of the members of a given
community to choose to live lives they have reason to value, which includes but is not restricted to
economic improvement (Trebilcock and Prado, 2014, 8). Departing from the initial insight, that
access to property rights is a precondition for investment; it is then possible to explore which
* Max Planck Institute, for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, G€
ottingen
doi: 10.1111/imig.12499
©2018 The Author
International Migration ©2018 IOM
International Migration Vol. 56 (6) 2018
ISS N 00 20- 7985 Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
aspects of the formalization of property rights in land can be analogized for the improved access to
property rights over migration. This is helpful to pin down the unique quality of migration as a dri-
ver for development. I suggest that migration is the only factor of production whose value is not
negatively affected by the functionality of the institutional setting (the qualities of the country’s
institutions with regard to the maximization of the preferences of the stakeholders in question) in
which the factor of production is situated. This is due to the fact that migration moves human capi-
tal into more functional institutional settings.
This is a conceptual article which explores how to reframe and to link two debates in develop-
ment studies rather than how to empirically test the impact of the availability of legal migration
paths on the possibility of investing in human capital. I reconceptualize the migration development
nexus in a way that renders the full effects of the regulation of migration transparent and helps to
take into account all these effects.
The article is organized in three parts. The first part links the debate on the formalization of
property rights with the debate on migration as a driver for development. It explains why control
over somebody’s migration is a property right and why, as a general rule, it is unlikely that receiv-
ing states would value this property right more than potential migrants. The second part tests the
analogy of enhanced accessibility of formal property rights in physical assets (like land) to access
to the property right over migration. The third part deals with the degree to which the criticism of
the property rights approach to development applies in the context of improved access to the prop-
erty right over migration.
TWO DEBATES, RARELY LINKED
Around the turn of the millennium, there was a remarkable renaissance of the optimistic view that
migration can foster development (de Haas, 2010, 257; Kelegama and Weeraratne, 2016, 210).
Although this euphoria has since been replaced by a more cautious and differentiated view (Bastia,
2013, 465) that draws attention to the importance of structural conditions in the country of origin
for remittances to have an impact (de Haas, 2010, 257), the notion that migration can be an effec-
tive and powerful driver of development is alive and well.
On the other hand, there is a solid consensus on the importance of secure property rights as a pre-
condition for economic development (Trebilcock and Prado, 2014, 48). The two debates, however,
are rarely linked (Piper, 2009, 95). Even authors who insist on the importance of well-protected rights
of migrants as a precondition for migration to have a positive impact on development tend to narrow
their arguments to the possible effect within the receiving country and to the effect of rights of
migrants already within that country (B€
ohning, 2009; Cox and Posner, 2009; 1418; Cox and Posner,
2007, 282). The fact that prospective secure access to these countries and their institutions might well
be a precondition for the possibility of investing in skills before emigrating, is frequently overlooked.
One reason for this gap is that the debate on migration and development remains overly focused
on the idea that everybody has a natural and given region of origin and that development does not
occur as long as it does not occur there (Sager, 2016, 336; Clemens, 2009; 7; Pritchett, 2006, 87).
Understanding the control over somebody’s migration to a given place as a property right is a help-
ful way to challenge this perception.
A basic outline of the theory of property rights
The theory of property rights describes the legal order as a system that allocates property rights
over valuable resources in a society. Property rights are defined as the socially recognized exclusive
control of a good by a person or by a group of persons. This definition comprises (but is not con-
strained to) legally backed and legally enforceable property rights. Since I am interested in the
A Property Rights Approach to the Skills of Migrants 37
©2018 The Author. International Migration ©2018 IOM
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