XCPD-717 - Migration and Development: Introduction to Research Tools
Course Description
The movement of people across borders has significant implications for economic development and poverty reduction in the country of origin, especially when these migrants move for the purpose of finding work overseas. Currently, there are about 250 million migrant workers worldwide and, as a group, they send back to their families and countries of origin $530 billion in remittances—nearly four times the size of global foreign aid. Over the past two decades, the literature on the economic lives of these people has grown considerably, increasing our understanding of the entire cycle of migration, from pre-departure to overseas deployment and eventual return or integration in the destination country, including the enormous economic gains as well as sizeable costs at each stage of this process.
This course draws on this literature to introduce students to (i) key issues and concepts in understanding the relationship between migration and development migration; (ii) the main sources of data that are used to understand the development impact of migration; and (iii) practical tools and research methods that are used to analyze the data.
Course Objectives
By the end of this course, students will be expected to:
- Discuss the main assumptions, strengths, and weaknesses of research frameworks and tools that have been used to quantify the development impact of migration.
- Know the key sources of data on migration and development and understand their main advantage and disadvantages.
- Produce national and comparative analyses of international migration and international remittances using real data in Excel.
- Assess the quality of new research and data analysis by asking critical questions based on a knowledge of the tools used and their alternatives.