A Modern Migration Theory

A timely book on the supposed trade-off between migration and the sustainability of the welfare state. Hansen’s skilful debunking of the 'sound finance' view demonstrates that there is no 'fiscal burden' when it comes to migration. Migrants are an essential part of the workforce and contribute to the economy. Hansen successfully rewires our thinking about migration and the economy. I highly recommend this superb book. -- Dirk Ehnts, Institute for International Political Economy, Berlin
Peo Hansen’s superb new book dismantles the dominant idea in political circles that there is a trade-off between migration and the sustainability of the welfare state. Using the insights of modern monetary theory, this politically urgent book reveals the xenophobic reality hidden beneath discourses of sound finance and claims of fragile solidarity. Hansen’s deeply humane and pragmatic account of the issues has the potential to transform our understandings of migration and open up the space for different political possibilities. This book should be on the desk of every journalist, politician and policy-maker in the European Union and beyond. -- Gurminder Bhambra, University of Sussex
In this important intervention, Peo Hansen explodes the treacherous and false opposition between moral and fiscal imperatives that dominates contemporary discourse around asylum and migration in Europe. He deftly interrogates the dubious but pervasive assumptions about the purported 'costs' of admitting refugees that serve to construct them as an economic burden, and elaborates a sophisticated alternative theory that repudiates the pernicious myth that migration is damaging to economic wellbeing. This book is essential reading. -- Nicholas De Genova, University of Houston, Texas