The following excerpt was originally published by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and co-authored by LaMP’s Executive Director Rebekah Smith and board member Janina Kugel, as well as Dr. Johann Daniel Harnoss, Marley Finley, Dany Bahar, and Hillel Rapoport on March 31, 2023 here.
Few of us would imagine it: innovation, perhaps the most pondered, probed, and pursued of business and societal imperatives today, is on the decline.1 Solutions to the critical challenges we face depend not only on a handful of exceptional individuals with breakthrough ideas, but on the broad array of people who help realize those ideas by keeping the engines running and greasing the wheels of progress. An essential ingredient in this mix is migration: a country’s blend of talent offered by populations drawn from beyond its borders—their brain power and brawn, their genius and common sense, and their creativity and fresh perspectives. Countries and cities that optimize their migration mix for economic potential can reap significant competitive advantage, now and in the decades ahead.
Yet most policymakers have failed to recognize this opportunity. In this report, we present a three-factor framework that can help public leaders stimulate economic growth through migration policy. BCG’s Global Talent Migration Index (GTMix) describes the elements of a winning migration mix—one that correlates squarely with greater productivity and innovation, as well as with public acceptance of immigrant workers. This novel, research-backed framework can help policymakers understand the current state of their migration strategy, benchmark it against the corresponding strategies of other countries, and ultimately design policies that will make their economy more vibrant, more innovative, and more resilient.
1 Bloom, Jones, Van Reenen & Webb (2020), “are Ideas Getting Harder to Find?” American Economic Review 110(4): 1104–44.