Modern Migration Theory: The Macroeconomics of Sweden's Refugee Reception
Lecturer: Prof Peo Hansen
2 February 2022
Lectures:
1. Asylum in Britain and the Legacies of Colonialism
3. Family, Intimacy & Migration
4. Modern Migration Theory: The Macroeconomics of Sweden's Refugee Reception
5. ‘Global Britain’ and the coloniality of British citizenship
Today both researchers and policy-makers agree that refugees admitted to the European Union constitute a net cost and fiscal burden for the receiving societies. As is often claimed, there is a trade-off between refugee migration and the fiscal sustainability of the welfare state. In this lecture, Peo Hansen shows that this consensual cost-perspective on migration is built on a flawed economic conception of the orthodox “sound finance” doctrine.
By shifting perspective to examine migration through the macroeconomic lens offered by Modern Monetary Theory, Hansen is able to demonstrate sound finance’s detrimental impact on migration policy and research. Most importantly, this undertaking offers the tools with which both migration research and migration policy could be modernized and put on a realistic footing.
Empirically, the lecture brings these tools to bear on the case of Sweden, the country that, proportionally speaking, has received the most refugees in the EU over the years while also having one of the most comprehensive welfare states in the EU.
Reading
- Ehnts, D. (2017) Modern Monetary Theory and European Macroeconomics. Abingdon: Routledge.
- Hansen, Peo (2021) A Modern Migration Theory: An Alternative Economic Approach to Failed EU Policy, Newcastle upon Tyne: Agenda Publishing
- Mitchell, William, L. Randall Wray & Martin Watts (2019) Macroeconomics, London: Red Globe Press.
Resources
- Bhambra, Gurminder K. 2021. ‘Editorial: Rethinking Modern Migration’ Discover Society: New Series 1 (1)
- Favell, Adrian 2021. ‘The Integrative versus Dis-integrative Effects of Asylum Seeker Migration’ Discover Society: New Series 1 (1)
- Goodfellow, Maya 2021. ‘Dismantling the Myths of Migrants as Threats or Tourists’ Discover Society: New Series 1 (1).
- Hansen, Peo 2021. ‘The True Economics of Migration’ Discover Society: New Series 1 (1).
- Kaboub, Fadhel 2021. ‘Preparing for a Climate Refugee Tsunami: The Case for Climate Reparations’ Discover Society: New Series 1 (1)
- Mayblin, Lucy 2021. ‘The Death of Asylum and the Search for Alternatives’ Discover Society: New Series 1 (1)
- Williams, Fiona 2021. ‘Modern Migration and the Inequalities of Gender and Care’ Discover Society: New Series 1 (1).