Relationship between National and City Policies in the Field of Migration

Abstract

The article discusses the issue of consistency in migration policy conducted by local and national governments. Four global cities (Paris, Shanghai, Seoul, Moscow) were chosen as the objects of the study, as these four cities represent common relationships between city and national migration policies. Several unique features of socioeconomic development of the countries and the cities in question that define the migration policy and its instruments are considered in this study. The findings indicate that the relationship between city and national migration policy affects the dynamics of migration indicators. In cities where national and local migration policies are consistent with each other the indicators of migration tend to be more stable overall, furthermore the regulatory instruments tend to be “softer” in cities with consistent policies. On the contrary, inconsistent city and national migration policy tends to produce more volatile outcomes despite harsher (and more costly) regulation, as well as guided opportunistic behavior in the interplay between national and city governments.