October 20, 2016
With the ongoing plight of migrants and refugees eager to resettle in Europe or North America — the political backlash against immigration in the US, UK, and continental Europe, including resurgent xenophobia — global migration has indeed become a crisis for rich and poor countries alike. On October 20, 2016, NYU’s Development Research Institute, Africa House, and the C.V. Starr Center for Applied Economics hosted a public conference to address “The Global Migration Crisis.”
The half-day conference featured presentations by leading economists on the economic drivers of migration and the xenophobia that can often arise in response to it. The conference featured rigorous analysis and a healthy diversity of opinion, made accessible to both non-academic and academic audiences. Presentations by speakers were followed by robust discussion with audience members, with over three hundred attendees participating.
Conference Presenters
- Introductory remarks by NYU Provost Katherine E. Fleming
- Keynote address by George Borjas, Robert W. Scrivner Professor of Economics and Social Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. “We Wanted Workers: Unraveling the Immigration Narrative”
- William Easterly, Professor of Economics at NYU, Co-director of the NYU Development Research Institute. “Development Stereotypes and Xenophobia: A Research Agenda”
- Naci Mocan, Ourso Distinguished Chair of Economics at Louisiana State University. “Economic Well-being and Anti-Semitic, Xenophobic, and Racist Attitudes in Germany”
- Yaw Nyarko, Professor of Economics at NYU, Co-director of the NYU Development Research Institute, Director of NYU Africa House. “Are the Migrants Better Off? Let Them Decide!”
- Lant Pritchett, Professor of Practice of International Development and Faculty Chair of the Master’s in Public Policy in International Development at Harvard Kennedy School of Government. “Is there a Goldilocks Solution?: ‘Just Right’ Promotion of Labor Mobility in a Post-2015 World”
