Further reading
The evidence base behind our thesis — curated papers, lit reviews, and essays on labour mobility and export manufacturing.
International labour mobility
Economics and Emigration: Trillion-Dollar Bills on the Sidewalk? →
Michael Clemens (2011)
Mobility is the largest unexploited source of global economic gain — dwarfing almost every other development intervention.
The Potential for Labor Mobility: Biggest First →
Lant Pritchett (2024)
Rotational labour mobility programmes represent the single biggest tractable opportunity in development economics today.
Emigration as a Development Strategy →
Charles Kenny (CGD)
Emigration is reliably associated with poverty reduction and human-capital investment in origin countries.
Brain Gain: Evidence from a Large-Scale Mobility Programme →
Batista, Han, Haushofer, Khanna, McKenzie, Mobarak, Theoharides & Yang (2025)
Empirical evidence that "brain drain" concerns are largely unfounded — brain gain dominates across sending communities.
International Migration: VoxDev Literature Review →
Dean Yang
A comprehensive review of the international migration evidence base, covering effects on migrants, origin, and destination countries.
What Happens When You Send Ugandan Students to Germany? →
Lauren Gilbert (Lauren Policy)
A close look at the Malengo programme and what early results tell us about the transformative potential of international mobility.
Malengo Impact Model Update, Fall 2025 →
Johannes Haushofer & Siri Nerland (2025)
Preliminary RCT evidence on Malengo confirms large, transformative effects on participants and their families.
Export manufacturing
Industrial Development and Trade Policy: VoxDev Literature Review →
VoxDev
Structural transformation via manufacturing is the most robust predictor of sustained poverty reduction.
Why Workers in Exporting Firms Learn and Earn More →
VoxDev
Learning-by-exporting effects are large and persistent — export-sector jobs raise productivity and wages over time.
What Do We Really Know About Growth in LMICs? Part 1: Sectoral →
Shruti Tadepalli
Growth accelerations in low- and middle-income countries are almost always export- and manufacturing-led.
Premature Deindustrialisation →
Dani Rodrik (2016)
Africa's manufacturing window is narrowing — making catalytic capital that can seed export firms especially valuable now.
Exporting and Firm Performance: Evidence from a Randomised Experiment →
Atkin, Khandelwal & Osman (2017)
RCT evidence that exporting directly raises firm productivity and product quality among developing-country manufacturers.