如何应对移民带来的两难 How to deal with the dilemmas over migrants

The recent images of refugees literAlly struggling over fences to get into Europe make for a powerful reminder, if it were needed, of the scale of the movement of people around the world. The latest official figures for world migration date show a clear step up in the proportion of the global population on the move. It rose from around 2.5 per cent of the total for the decades 1960-1990, to 3.2 per cent in 2013 — and the absolute number had reached 231.5m. For the attractive destination countries, the share of the total population consisting of those of foreign birth has reached much higher proportions (15.9 per cent in Sweden, 14.3 per cent in the US, 12.4 per cent in the UK and 11.9 per cent in Germany, on theinternationally comparable UN figures).

最近那些难民挣扎着翻越隔离围栏、涌入欧洲的照片有力地提醒了我们全世界人口流动规模之巨大（如果这种提醒有必要的话）。最新的全球移民官方数据显示出，全球人口中流动人口比例出现明显上升。这一比例从1960年至1990年数十年间的2.5%左右上升至2013年的3.2%，而且流动人口绝对人数已增至2.315亿。对于有吸引力的目的地国家来说，总人口构成中出生于外国的人口比例已远高于以前（根据具有国际可比性的联合国数据：瑞典为15.9%、美国14.3%、英国12.4%、德国11.9%）。

Large-scale migration is nothing new. The late 19th and early 20th century saw huge movements from the Old World to the New. Before that, African slavery transformed the populations of the Caribbean and US. Taking into account movements within Asia, too (for example from northeastern China to Manchuria and Japan), the global total peaked in the 1920s. Post-war turmoil in Europe and Asia alike brought further large movements of people hoping to build new lives in new places.

大规模移民并不是什么新鲜事。19世纪末20世纪初，大量人口从“旧世界”迁徙到“新世界”。在那之前，来自非洲的奴隶改变了加勒比海地区及美国的人口构成。再加上亚洲范围内的人口迁徙（比如从中国东北到日本），全球流动人口总数在上世纪20年代达到了峰值。一战后欧洲及亚洲的动荡局势同样带来了更大规模的人口流动，人们希望在新的地方开始新的生活。

Equally, though, there is nothing new about the political and cultural tensions these migrations bring. Assimilation takes (at least) a generation, for obvious reasons. Residents dislike some of the consequences if they are directly affected by immigrant arrivals, or fear them, if they are not — polling evidence shows stronger support for anti-immigration politicians in areas where there are the fewest immigrants.

然而，同样不新奇的是这些移民带来的政治、文化上的紧张关系。因为显而易见的各种原因，实现同化（至少）需要一代人时间。如果本地居民直接受到了外来移民的影响、或者没有受到影响但害怕后者，他们不会欢迎移民的到来——民调证据显示，在外来移民最少的地区，居民对反对移民的政客表现出更大的支持。

This is creating an acute policy dilemma, reportedly played out in the UK in the shape of a row between ministers. The political imperative is to limit or reduce the number of inward migrants; the economic imperative is to do the opposite. The economic consequences of large-scale immigration will always depend on the context, but the recent evidence for the UK is that the large inflows have had little adverse labour market effect on existing residents. The country’s employment rate is high, and it was only during the recession that there were signs of downward pressure on the wages of people on low pay.

这正在造成一种严峻的政策两难，据报道这一幕正在英国上演，表现为各部大臣之间的争吵。政治上要做的是限制或减少外来移民的数量；经济上则相反。大规模移民的经济后果通常取决于环境，但对英国来说，最新的证据是，移民大量流入几乎未对本地居民在劳动力市场造成不利影响。英国就业率高，而且只有在经济衰退期间，才会出现对低收入人群工资产生下行压力的迹象。

This might seem surprising until you realise that the recent immigrants have skills that are complementary to the workforce in situ, rather than competing with it. This is a characteristic encouraged by the points-based migration policy; the independent Migration Advisory Committee (on which I served for five years) updated its skills shortage list earlier this year. Immigrants here have tended to be younger on average than the existing (ageing) population, net contributors to the public finances; and many are skilled workers. And, after all, it is probably the most dynamic and determined who go through the upheaval of moving to a new country.

这或许令你感到惊讶，直到你意识到，近期的移民拥有与本地劳动力互补、而非竞争的技能。这正是基于积分的移民政策的特点；我曾供职过5年的独立咨询机构——移民咨询委员会(Migration Advisory Committee)今年早些时候更新了短缺技能清单。外来移民平均而言往往比现有（老龄化）的人口更年轻，是公共财政的净贡献者；而且，许多都是有技能的工人。毕竟，经历过迁移到一个新国家的剧变的人，可能是最有干劲和决心的人。

So immigration has had, if anything, a positive impact on the aggregate UK economy. No country can be a global leader in any market if it cannot bring in a global workforce. The City’s banks and professional services firms, the multinationals, the software companies, the creative industries — all the high value growth sectors of the economy — need that raw material of a diverse and international workforce. Higher education needs foreign students, who subsidise UK undergraduates. The public sector needs nurses and nursery assistants and carers and cleaners from eastern and southern Europe because cost pressures mean it does not increase wages to attract residents from, say, accountancy or PR.

因此，如果移民对英国整体经济有什么影响的话，也是积极影响。如果不能引入全球劳动力的话，没有国家能在任何市场领域成为全球领导者。伦敦金融城的银行与专业服务公司、跨国公司、软件公司以及创意产业——经济中所有的高价值增长领域——需要多样化、国际化的劳动力供应。高等教育需要外国留学生，后者所交学费可以补贴英国大学本科生。公共部门需要来自东欧、南欧的护士、托儿所助手、护工及清洁工，因为成本压力意味着不可能利用提高工资来吸引（比如说）从事会计或公关工作的居民从事此类工作。

So what can politicians do to deal with the conflicting pressures?

那么，政客们该如何做才能应对这些相互冲突的压力呢？

One step — simple to an economist, harder for politicians who dread “U-turns” — would be not to shoot yourself in the foot with an unattainable target. The UK government’s “net migration in the tens of thousands” target was obviously always unattainable. It is a very bad idea to target the difference between two large numbers neither of which you can control. The structure of the target is causing stupid decisions such as preventing foreign students from working in the UK for a limited period after graduation. Targets should at least in principle be controllable and meaningful, so in the UK context that means aimed at non-EU inward migration for economic reasons.

第一步——对经济学家来说简单，但对害怕“180度大转弯”的政客们来说难一些——是不要用无法实现的目标砸自己的脚。英国政府“数万净移民”的目标显然是永远无法实现的。为两个你无法控制的大数字的差额设定目标是一个非常糟糕的主意。这一目标的结构正导致愚蠢的决定，如阻止外国留学生毕业后在英国工作一段有限的时间。目标至少应该在原则上是可控的、有意义的，所以，对英国来说，这意味着从经济原因出发制定针对非欧盟外来移民的目标。

A second kind of measure addresses the economic drivers. The public sector itself could play a large role here by reducing its reliance on cheap labour, often arising indirectly through budget pressures on local authority spending on old age care or NHS spending on nurses. Pay and employment conditions will have to improve otherwise the demand for new immigrants to fill these jobs dependent on public spending will only grow.

第二类措施需要解决经济驱动力问题。在这方面，公共部门本身可以通过降低对廉价劳动力的依赖发挥很大的作用，这种依赖往往间接地产生于地方当局养老支出、或者国民卫生服务体系(NHS)护士薪水支出方面的预算压力。工资及雇佣条件必须得到改善，否则，对于用新移民填补这些依赖公共支出的职位的需求只会不断增加。

It is also important to deal with the adverse consequences of immigration outside the labour market, which manifest themselves in higher demand for public services and housing. Rents go up, GP surgeries are crowded with people speaking foreign languages, buses are packed full at rush hour. Although immigrants here are net financial contributors, paying more in taxes than they receive in benefits and services, that net contribution is not going into the services they use. This is a consequence of the UK’s highly centralised fiscal politics. If the government would devolve enough tax raising and spending power to local authorities, the pressures could be more easily addressed. Let the places where the immigrant settle charge a small local sales tax or keep local property tax revenue, and spend it on schools, housebuilding, transport and the health and social care budget in their area.

同样重要的是要应对移民在劳动力市场之外造成的不良后果，主要表现在提升了对公共服务和住房的需求。租金上涨，全科医生诊所挤满了操着外语的患者，高峰时间公交车里人满为患。虽然来到英国的移民是财政净贡献者——纳税额比得到的福利和服务要多，但净贡献不会进入到他们享受的服务之中。这是英国高度集中的财政政治的结果。如果英国政府能将足够的征税和支出的权力下放到地方当局，就可以更容易地缓解这些压力。让移民定居的地方当局征收少量的地方消费税或者保留当地的房地产税收收入，并用于这些地区的学校、住房建设、交通、医疗和社会福利预算。

None of these would make the migration flows that the world and the UK are experiencing easy to deal with but they would make the dilemmas far less acute.

这些措施都不可能让全球及英国正在经历的移民流动更加易于应对，但会显著缓和两难局面的尖锐性。