A Modern Migration Theory: An Alternative Economic Approach to Failed EU Policy

Today both researchers and policy-makers agree that refugees admitted to the European Union constitute a net cost and fiscal burden for the receiving societies.

In this lecture, Peo Hansen shows that this consensual cost-perspective on migration is built on a flawed economic conception of the orthodox “sound finance” doctrine prevalent in migration research and policy. By shifting perspective to examine migration through the macroeconomic lens offered by Modern Monetary Theory, Hansen is able to demonstrate sound finance’s detrimental impact on migration policy and research, including its role in stoking the toxic debate on migration in the EU. Most importantly, this undertaking offers the tools with which both migration research and migration policy could be modernized and put on a realistic footing. Investigating the case of Sweden, Hansen demonstrates how Sweden’s increased refugee spending in 2015–2017 proved to be fiscally risk-free and how the injection of funds to cash-strapped and depopulating municipalities, which received refugees, boosted economic growth and investment in welfare. Hansen’s aim is to reveal its applicability as a model for the EU as a whole.

Events

  • EuMIGS Lecture Series 2024

    EuMIGS has launched its online public Lecture Series of the autumn/winter semester 2024 on the Sociology of the Sociological Position: Biography, Subjectivity and Reflexivity in Migration Studies.

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News & Blogs

  • EuMIGS at the IMISCOE conference: Migration research on the move

    Twenty EuMIGS Double Degree students participated in the IMISCOE Annual Conference 2024 in Lisbon on the topic of reflexivity in migration research. In two EuMIGS workshops, students presented their recently finished or ongoing master thesis projects...
  • EuMIGS Winter Workshop in Liège

    20 EuMIGS double degree students, 11 Master students from the EuMIGS partner Universities and 9 EuMIGS coordinators met in Liège for the network 2024 Winter workshop.

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  • All EuMIGS Lectures 2023 are now online!

    The EuMIGS Lecture Series - Autumn 2023 brought together eight researchers from eight EuMIGS partner universities working on the topics of citizenship and mobility and how these are intertwined.

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