Migration and economic development in Africa: A review of evidence created by Robert E.B. Lucas

Within the international community there has been a recent flurry of interest in international migration and its associated flow of remittances. Yet, despite this mounting interest, relatively little literature has appeared on the economics of international migration in Sub-Saharan Africa.2 A large part of the constraint on research on international migration in general, and in Africa in particular, remains the lack of adequate data. Only a few countries in the region report estimates of remittances on balance of payments. With the exception of organised recruiting programs, few countries even attempt to keep track of emigrant flows, in Africa as elsewhere. Where large parts of inward migration are irregular, which is true throughout much of Africa, official counts of immigration flows reveal very little.3 Yet the porosity of borders in the region also means that much can be learned about international migration, and even remittances, from studies of internal migration, since both internal and international movements occur largely without effective control.