Philippe Legrain

“Them and Us” by Philippe Legrain, a former Economist journalist, sets out the benefits of migration and asks how newcomers and locals can get along better. “Wretched Refuse?” by Alex Nowrasteh and Benjamin Powell, a think-tanker and an academic, asks a crucial question: might immigration from poor, corrupt countries undermine the institutions of rich, well-governed ones? Mr […]

“A full-throated defence of open borders and freedom of movement could easily feel too late at a time when Home Office officials looked at shipping asylum seekers to distant islands. Legrain’s work is anything but: it makes a solid rebuttal against the polemics of anti-immigrant talking heads with an unabashedly positive case for immigration grounded […]

Two promising #COVID19 vaccines, with immigrants to thank for both. BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine has been developed by a Turkish migrant to Germany. Moderna was co-founded by Canadian biologist and Lebanese-born scientist and investor. So much for nativists who claim immigrants have nothing to contribute. Read my latest for Foreign Policy

Far-right populism is not dead, but it can be defeated. Are Europeans up to the task? Read my latest for Project Syndicate

Read my latest piece for Foreign Policy

In Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them, economist and financial journalist Philippe Legrain does a thorough job of debunking the myth that “government workers are ever really in a position to adequately assess which workers the economy needs at any given time.” First, because the market’s needs fluctuate so widely and so quickly, and second, the […]

On ABC RN’s Sunday Extra with Hugh Riminton on 20 April Listen here.

Despite the huge challenges they face, refugees are the most entrepreneurial migrants in Australia – and are nearly twice as likely to start a business as Australian taxpayers in general. Read my piece in the Guardian to coincide with the publication of my new study for the Centre for Policy Development and OPEN on refugee […]

Photo by Joy Ekpeti I debated this with Ian Goldin at The Economist’s Open Future conference in London. Having just flown in from Sydney I was extremely jetlagged, but apart from saying the word “fundamentally” a few too many times, I hope my positive, reasoned message came across well. Watch the full day on YouTube; our […]

As part of its excellent Open Future series, The Economist has published an open essay by me that asks: how do we convince sceptics of the value of immigration? The first part is out today, and the subsequent parts will be enriched by readers’ comments. So please take a look and add your ideas and […]

My piece for the Evening Standard

Britain’s immigration system isn’t fit for purpose. Its political targets are perverse. Its guiding philosophy is reminiscent of Soviet-style central planning. The resulting rules are unworkably complex. Their administration by the Home Office mixes incompetence with malice. The upshot is heavy-handed controls that still leave voters feeling that things are out of control. That’s bad […]

Read my latest briefing for OPEN. Join our mailing list to stay updated!

Read my piece for Open Democracy

“It’s a pity that Theresa May has a chance to re-think immigration policy and she is falling back on a tried and tested failure,” I said, on Theresa May’s decision to keep the UK’s absurd net migration target, which she repeatedly missed during her six years as Home Secretary. Read the piece here.

I have evidence to the House of Lords’ Economic Affairs committee on what a post-Brexit immigration system should look like. Watch it here. My testimony was quoted in The Sun and the Express. The BBC posted a clip of me explaining why immigration tends to boost GDP per capita.

Refugees are a tiny proportion of the U.S. population — some 3.3 million have been admitted since 1975 — but they have had an outsized impact. Google co-founder Sergey Brin was a child refugee from the Soviet Union; Google’s parent company, Alphabet, is now America’s second-most valuable firm, with a market capitalization of $553 billion. […]

My column for CapX

Conservative Brexiteers – who campaigned for the United Kingdom to vote to leave the European Union – continue to blather about building an open, outward-looking, free-trading Britain. But the UK is in fact turning inward. Prime Minister Theresa May, who styles herself as the UK’s answer to Angela Merkel, is turning out to have more […]

More topical than ever, my debate with Ed West for Bright Blue’s magazine, Centre Write.