Migration and Development: Guest Editors' Preface

• Published date: 01 April 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/sjoe.12108
• Date: 01 April 2015

Scand. J. of Economics 117(2), 296–302, 2015

DOI: 10.1111/sjoe.12108

Migration and Development:

Guest Editors’ Preface

The migration and development literature continues to grow rapidly in

terms of depth and breadth. There are many innovative studies that ask

new questions, enter new areas, or introduce new analytical and empirical

methods to existing areas and questions. This interest in international mi-

gration led the World Bank Development Research Group to initiate the

Research Program on International Migration and Development in 2003.

Since then, the L’Agence Franc¸aise de D´

eveloppement (AFD)–World Bank

conference series on migration and development has, within a short time,

become one of the most important venues for presenting new research at

the intersection of migration and development literature. The papers in this

issue were presented at the Sixth Annual Conference on International Mi-

gration and Development at Al Akhawayn University of Ifrane, Morocco,

in May 2013. This conference was preceded by the 2012 conference held

at the AFD headquarters in Paris, and followed by the 2014 conference at

Oxford University.

The success of the conference series and the commitment of the World

Bank and AFD to sponsoring the conferences reflect the recognition by

international development agencies and the academic community of the

importance of international migration to the development agenda. These

conferences have been jointly organized by the Research Department of

the AFD; the Development Research Group of the World Bank; and, for

the last four years, the Center for Global Development.

The papers in this special issue of The Scandinavian Journal of Eco-

nomics reveal that there has been a shift in the topics over time, from the

impact of remittances and brain drain, to a variety of other areas. Among

these are the roles that networks play in immigration and assimilation; the

interaction between migration and various domestic policies; the linkages

between cultural norms and migration; analysis of different types of mi-

gration flows; and the impact of immigration on gender issues and family

decisions.

These papers contribute to the literature in many different dimensions.

Some of them explore more traditional issues with new datasets. Some

develop new analytical models to analyze high-profile issues. Others look

at diverse sets of labor market implications. The interaction between

migration and domestic policies is another topic here. Despite their wide

range of topics, techniques, and conclusions, the papers widen the scope

of our knowledge and contribute to our understanding of the development

CThe editors of The Scandinavian Journal of Economics 2015.