Introduction to symposium ‘Immigration and the welfare state’ Martin Paldam Department of Economics building 322, Aarhus University, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark Received 4 May 2006; accepted 4 May 2006 Available online 30 October 2006 Abstract Immigration from a poor to a rich country is potentially advantageous for both immigrants and the inhabitants of the receiving country, and hence for the world. However, the conditions for the potential to be fully realized are strict. Welfare states normally have a refugee orientation that promotes adverse selection of immigrants and institutional arrangements that provide little incentive to work. In such cases the welfare gain is large for the immigrant but inhabitants of the receiving country lose. Aspects of the gains and losses are investigated in the four papers included in this symposium. © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. JEL classification: F22; J41; J70; O15 Keywords: Immigration; Welfare state One of the most controversial issues on the political agenda in many rich countries is immigration from the poor world. A tangle of complex problems raises issues that are both humanitarian and economic. I here summarize four papers in this symposium dealing with economic aspects of the tangle: Blume and Verner (2007-this issue), Borooah and Mangan (2007-this issue), Nannestad (2007-this issue), and Wadensjö (2007-this issue). The papers will be organized according to a simple framework, presented in Chand and Paldam (2006), 1 which allows the calculation of gains and losses of immigrant and natives. 2 The first observation is that the immigration of people from poor to rich countries is a potential advantage for both parties. When the immigrant is accepted at time t = 0, he or she ideally shifts from European Journal of Political Economy 23 (2007) 448 – 452 www.elsevier.com/locate/ejpe E-mail address: mpaldam@econ.au.dk. 1 Chand and Paldam (2006) provide all assumptions and calculations. 2 The third part, i.e. the LDC, is disregarded. This may be justified in two ways: (i) the LDC may be a labor surplus economy, and (ii) the loss may be offset by remittances. 0176-2680/$ - see front matter © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2006.05.003