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In this study, Jeffrey G. Williamson examines the political economy of immigration backlash and immigration policy in two global centuries. The first, between 1820 and World War I, was a proglobal environment, characterized by booming trade, labor, and capital markets. It was followed by an antiglobal and autarchic retreat between 1914 and 1950. Williamson finds that the second global century has moved to reclaim world integration in trade and capital markets, but immigration policy in high-wage countries has not tried to reclaim an open stance.

Jeffrey G. Williamson is the Laird Bell Professor of Economics at Harvard University, where he serves as faculty fellow at the Center for International Development and faculty associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.

The Henry Wendt Lecture Series

The Political Economy of World Mass Migration was the 2004 Henry Wendt Lecture delivered at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., on May 11, 2004. The Wendt Lecture is delivered annually by a scholar who has made major contributions to our understanding of the modern phenomenon of globalization and its consequences for social welfare, government policy, and the expansion of liberal political institutions.

Other books in the Henry Wendt Lecture Series:

• Growth and Interaction in the World Economy
• In Defense of Empires