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A new article by Hein de Haas discusses whether borders are beyond control, as Jagdish Bhagwati famously argued in 2003. And asks what we actually know about the effects of immigration policies?

In this article Hein de Haas discusses findings from the IMI research project on the 'Determinants of International Migration' (DEMIG) that analyses the effectiveness of migration policies.

One of the main insights of the project is that while immigration restrictions often reduce immigration, these effects tend to be rather small. In addition, restrictions often have a four potential side-effects ('substitution effects') which further undermine their effectiveness or can even make them counter-productive.