Thomas Pfirsch & Madeleine Sumption
Résumé
Since the financial crisis of the early 2000s, many countries have launched « investment migration » programs seeking to attract privileged migrants by offering them citizenship or stable residency in exchange for financial investments. A line of research has emerged on these “golden passports and visas”, focusing on their policy designs, as well as on their impact on the reshaping of membership to the Nation State. But their consequences on receiving societies are still unexplored. Is “investment migration” really an investment for the countries that set them up ? The panel will revisit the “investment migration” narrative by analyzing its economic outcomes on the national accounts, housing markets, and “migration industry” of the destination countries. It will also study the effects of “investment migration” on human mobilities by focusing on the understudied “investor migrants”. While in some countries golden visas are primarily a means of attracting capital rather than people, in others they combine lifestyle migration, tourism and financial optimisation. Lastly, many of these programs are based on real estate, and therefore have deep impacts on the urban patterns and built environment of receiving countries.
We welcome contributions on the following topics (but not limited to them):
– Investment migration industry, capital mobility, and their economic outcomes
– The lifestyles of investor migrants and their impact on social inequality and segregration in receiving countries.
– The spatial effects and environmental consequences of investment migration
– Case studies from the Global North and the Global South, as well as comparative studies.