Your Place or Mine? The local economics of migration

This working paper is the first from ippr's Economics of Migration project. The project aims to improve understanding of the economic impacts of migration in the UK, and how policy should respond to that migration in order to maximise its economic benefits, and minimise its costs.

This working paper makes clear the variety of ways in which migration may have affected local firms and economies. While some impacts of migration - such as filling local skills gaps - are quite visible, migration also affects local economies in less noticeable ways, such as by boosting local markets. The paper brings these out, and underlines the importance of looking at migration's longer-term impacts in local areas, as well as its short-term effects.