Is it possible to trade citizenship

Previously it was an Anglo-French condominium called the New Hebrides, and the people are scattered over a daisy chain of more than 80 islands. Less than 40 years ago, they were stateless. A fact not lost on former Prime Minister Barak Sope. It was humiliating. Mr Sope says it is a "betrayal" for Vanuatu to sell its citizenship, and points to the flood of Chinese investment in the region.

The Chinese investment is criticised by locals such as Mr Sope, who complain that the Chinese companies keep all the money, and only employ Chinese labour. Vanuatu's all male government, one of only three countries in the world where women are entirely excluded from politics, was not keen to speak to us about its citizenship scheme. But we tracked down a government appointed citizenship agent, Bill Bani, who explains his take on the initiative. It's bringing in a lot of money to Vanuatu.

But for the mainly rural population the policy has been highly controversial since its inception in Anne Pakoa, a community leader, shows us around a typical village made up of corrugated iron shacks. It's just 10 minutes' drive down a dirt road from the shops and restaurants of the capital but feels a world away.

Anne says that local communities aren't seeing the money from the passport sales, despite promises that the scheme would rebuild infrastructure and homes after the devastating Cyclone Pam in Now people are carrying the same green passport I carry?

Where is the money? I think this has to stop," she says. Susan, another woman from the same village, shows us a dirty well. More from the BBC's series taking an international perspective on trade:.

With demand from the Chinese market booming, Dan McGarry, who runs the local newspaper, says it will be hard to imagine a change in policy anytime soon. But we have to ask ourselves, is this what we fought for? This symmetry suggests that wrestling with the idea could be instructive. Part I of this Article reviews the open-borders literature, with a particular eye to how it lends support to the idea of a citizenship market. Part II provides context for questions surrounding individual sale and transfer of citizenship by exploring global examples of citizenship transfers.

Part III discusses the benefits of a private citizenship market in terms of individual rights and economics. Part IV confronts anticipated criticisms of a private citizenship market, including concerns of equality, efficiency, and inalienability. Sovereign states are defined by their physical borders. Correspondingly, they steadfastly guard their prerogative to determine who will be a citizen—meaning, in essence, who will have membership rights within those borders.

Philosophers, political scientists, and legal scholars alike have debated whether nations have any right to exclude migrants from physical entry or membership. Political theorist Joseph Carens has led the vanguard on this issue.

Carens notes that the free movement authorized within the European Union 33 is proof that movement across borders does not diminish sovereignty. Restrictions on migration usually serve as a protection for economic and political privilege. In contrast, when legal scholar Kevin R. Specifically, Johnson points out that immigration laws in the United States have historically been designed to discriminate on the basis of race, 43 and border enforcement efforts have been racially charged and violent.

In addition to citing the negative effects of current border restrictions, Johnson cites the potential economic benefits of open borders. Johnson also brings other policy arguments to bear. He notes that open borders are consonant with an understanding that perfect enforcement of the border will never be possible. Despite these wide-ranging philosophical, economic, and policy-based arguments in support of open borders, what Carens, Johnson, and others 54 have been unable to do is offer a satisfactory response to the concern that unrestricted migration will overwhelm those nations to which many would like to migrate, fundamentally changing the receiving countries in the process.

This oversubscription problem has caused some to step back from supporting a pure form of open borders. Such an assumption seems dubious and is unsupported by empirical evidence. The marginal-benefit-limit argument also ignores the fact that the receiving nation might change radically before migration comes to a halt on its own. In addition, this argument leaves wide open the possibility that those persons who are not immigrants—persons living in the receiving country before the borders are opened—might well be made worse off by the sudden population increase.

In the end, the proponents of open borders have not offered a satisfying answer to the problem of oversubscription. Yet, the benefits identified in the open-borders literature are tantalizing. So the question becomes this: How could we avail ourselves of the benefits of open borders without succumbing to its greatest weakness? A private citizenship market just might be a plausible answer.

A citizenship market is not as radical of an idea as it might first seem. Countries around the globe currently allow individuals to naturalize, which is to say that countries offer individuals a means by which they can voluntarily change their citizenship. And some countries allow individuals to pay for the privilege of naturalization.

In many countries, individuals have the opportunity to change their citizenship through naturalization, a process that allows individuals, after following a series of prescribed steps, to take on a new citizenship different from the one they were born into. Naturalization is a process dictated by sovereign nations.

An individual cannot naturalize without the help and consent of the nation. And, critically, any change in citizenship through naturalization is just that—a change and not an exchange. It is a process that affects a single individual. It is also typically a lengthy process. Take the United States. Consider this example: Lupe became a naturalized U. Lupe would like to bring her daughter, Maria, to the United States.

Maria lives in Mexico and is a citizen of Mexico. When Lupe became a U. Maria will have waited more than twenty years to come to the United States. When she arrives, Maria will not immediately be eligible for citizenship. She must file more paperwork, take a test, and, most importantly, wait an additional five years.

If twenty-five years seems too long to wait for citizenship, there are countries that offer a fast-track option—at a price. Kitts and Nevis, and St.

Some countries do not offer straight cash-for-passport options, but they do offer a fast-track path to citizenship for investors. Programs similar to the EB-5 visa exist in other countries as well. These examples—from Dominica to New Zealand—are all instances of countries that are, in essence, offering citizenship for sale. There are differences in whether that sale is immediate or delayed, how long the process of obtaining citizenship can take, and the level of financial investment required.

But in every case, the economic reality undeniably is that citizenship is being sold. In the above examples, new citizenship is obtainable, but only with the help and assent of a sovereign nation. If an individual seeks to obtain a new citizenship on his or her own, without the involvement of any government, the only way to so do is through the black market.

Citizenship here is in quotes because new citizenship is not truly obtainable without the consent of the governing nation. But an individual could create the verisimilitude of citizenship by obtaining a birth certificate that would establish one as having been born in a country that confers citizenship on the basis of geography, like the United States.

Another form of black-market sale of citizenship is marriage fraud. Marriage fraud occurs when a couple marries not for love but to obtain immigration benefits.

They have the right to remain in the United States and automatically have a path to eventually becoming a U. Accepting that citizenship is already for sale, how might a private citizenship market work?

The citizenship market envisioned in this Article is a simple one. Individuals, globally, would be free to trade citizenship. Such trades might occur without any cash incentive, as Aiesha and Priya from the Introduction would like to do, or trades might be sweetened by a financial incentive, as Charles from the Introduction would be happy to offer. A citizenship market would allow, in many ways, free movement across borders. So long as a transaction were agreed upon, movement would be allowed.

That is consistent with a liberal theory of immigration. In addition, a citizenship market would have strong economic benefits within the framework of neoclassical economic theory that tells us that no exchange will take place in a free market unless both parties will benefit. The model of citizenship I am using here can be likened to seating assignments at a wedding reception.

Let me first paint a picture: Imagine a wedding reception for about guests. The bride and groom do the best they can to arrange tables of individuals with like interests—but they do an imperfect job. Across the room is a table of happily married sixty-somethings who will focus their discussion on retirement portfolios, golf courses to try, and the ins and outs of Medicare Part D. Devin is a swimsuit designer in his twenties. Edward is a banker in his sixties who would love to be at the sixty-something table, but he somehow ended up at the twenty-something table—where he is now sorry to have provoked a conversation about whether the moon landing was faked.

Clearly, both Devin and Edward would have a much better time at the wedding if they could just get together and trade seats. To put it in economic terms, Devin and Edward can make a mutually beneficial, welfare-maximizing trade.

Thus, we ought to allow them to do so. Now picture Flo. Ginny is seated at the twenty-something table, and she is perfectly happy to be there. But Ginny is also broke. She would be happy to move to the sixty-something table if she was paid to do so. Flo and Ginny would both be better off if they could trade tables, albeit this time with a cash component that makes the trade mutually beneficial.

Of course, Devin and Flo could just visit the twenty-something table. They might wander over, crouch down by one of the guests, and chat for a few moments.

Their ability to do so is something analogous to a tourist visa. But without a seat, they could not rest their feet or enjoy dinner. What they want is a seat at the table—citizenship in our analogy. Using the seating-chart model, we can understand the tradable good in a citizenship market to be the right of an individual to have a seat at the table.

It is the opportunity to become a full member of society—to stay through the tiramisu and not have to leave. A citizenship market has the potential to advance the same concerns for individual rights championed by those favoring open borders. The individual rights affected by closed borders go beyond the right of entry. As Johnson indicates, individual rights are also affected by current border practices that result in violence and death that is largely motivated by race.

Despite these morally concerning side effects of closed borders, sovereign nations around the globe continue to enforce them—forcefully. A citizenship market, however, would capture much of the benefits of open borders.

It would enable individuals to travel freely across political boundaries. More than that, it would give many migrants freedom to become citizens of another country. In many cases, the only entry fee would be the citizenship that they themselves give up. Even where citizenship would only be available at a price, a citizenship market would make that citizenship available to anyone capable of funding the purchase.

At the same time, a citizenship market would solve one of the central problems of open borders: oversubscription. An individual market would not result in a glut of new citizens. Rather, the entire market would be net-neutral, allowing new citizens to enter the country only at the rate by which citizens would be looking to leave it.

In addition to the liberal-theory benefits of an open market, the Coase Theorem suggests that the trade of citizenship would be economically efficient: in the absence of transaction costs, individuals will bargain to an efficient outcome.

Before unpacking these statements, it is important to remember that citizenship is currently allocated by nations. Considering whether a citizenship market should be allowed requires asking whether a market, of the sort I discuss here, could increase the efficiency of citizenship allocation over distribution by countries. If there is an inchoate, but unrealized, citizenship exchange, there is allocative inefficiency.

Disallowing market participants from engaging in the exchange means that participants in the would-be citizenship economy cannot put citizenship to its highest use. Potential value is lost. The lost value might be purely economic, perhaps representing the increased earnings a would-be migrant would experience in the country where they would like to gain membership.

The very fact that citizenship has been monetized by countries and by the black market indicates that citizenship can, indeed, be an item of monetary value. The lost value might also be something more ephemeral, like happiness. Recall Aiesha and Priya from the introduction. If they are prevented from transferring their citizenships, each will suffer a distinct loss in happiness. Not only would a citizenship market have the potential to recapture these lost allocative efficiencies; a market would also have the potential to reap new economic gains.

For now, consider just the pure transfer market. Each party to a swap would only be willing to trade citizenships if they believed it would be a potential benefit to them or, at least, would not make them worse off. Theoretically, trading and swapping would continue so long as one party to the swapping would be better off as a result of the swap and the other would be no worse off—a status known as Pareto superiority. And maximizing the highest use can be conceived of as increased economic value.

In the monetary market for citizenship, citizens who may never have thought about selling their citizenship might be induced to do so because of the availability of a market. Recall Flo the psychologist researching youth and culture and Ginny the broke editorial assistant. Ginny might never have thought about selling her seat at the twenty-something table until approached by Flo with an offer she finds irresistible.

He is induced to enter the market specifically because of the financial payout it promises. When someone like Charles enters the market, greater efficiency is reached. Charles will not agree to a sale until he receives money that he believes fairly compensates him for his citizenship.

And a potential buyer will offer Charles only so much money for that citizenship as they believe is advantageous for their own situation. Bidding within the market would continue to a point that would leave both Charles and the buyer in a position they believe to be better than the one from which they started. The potential allocative efficiencies for individuals in the citizenship market are real. The market would allow individuals to reach agreements whether to buy, sell, or trade that would make all participants in the transaction better off.

The benefits to individuals are further increased by the private nature of the market. Keeping governments out of the market would reduce transaction costs by eliminating governmental screening and paperwork, which are themselves often both onerous and inefficient. Moreover, keeping governments out of the process of citizenship exchanges would eliminate the real and substantial inefficiencies posed by corruption. Despite the fact that a citizenship market could be both economically beneficial and more consonant with liberal theory, there are many reasons people would find it objectionable.

This Part considers critiques along three lines: equality, efficiency, and inalienability. There are several equality arguments against a citizenship market. One could argue that a citizenship market would unfairly impact poor individuals in highly desirable countries. This might negatively affect the countries the poor are leaving. It might also negatively affect the countries to which they relocate.

The individual-equality argument against a citizenship market is this: The poor holding citizenship in highly desirable countries are more likely to sell their citizenship and do so for a small sum; this is an equality concern because only the poor will be enticed to leave, and they would be enticed to leave at a price that is perhaps lower than the true value of their citizenship.

It is no doubt true that the poor are more likely to sell their citizenship and more likely to accept a lower dollar figure in exchange for their citizenship. That is a straightforward consequence of the diminishing marginal utility of money—the fact that a single additional dollar is more valuable to a poor person than a rich person.

Whatever sum of money is obtained through the market could be the basis for starting a new life in another country. And, by and large, less money is needed to start a new life in another country. Recall Charles, discussed in the Introduction.

Charles is currently poor and highly motivated to sell his remaining asset: his citizenship. But Charles does not need to sell it at a level that would satisfy a rich person. Charles needs only to sell it at an amount that would finance a life he would be satisfied with somewhere in a country with a lower cost of living, such as Ecuador, Panama, Mexico, or Costa Rica.

At the end of that transaction, Charles is better off than he would have been continuing to live in poverty in the United States. The objection to a citizenship market on the basis of individual equality also needs to be put in context. That is, we must ask about the basis for comparison in claiming that a citizenship market harms equality. If a citizenship market is thought to be more unequal, then we must ask, more unequal compared to what?

If the argument about equality is that a citizenship market exacerbates inequality compared with the status quo, that argument seems unavailing for the reasons discussed above.

If, on the other hand, the equality-based objection to a citizenship market is that it results in a more unequal social order than would be achieved through open borders, that objection is well put—but it must be placed in context with the unresolved practical objection to an open-borders policy on the basis of oversubscription.

As this chart shows, Maltese and Cypriot schemes offer visa-free access to a large number of countries. However, the offer of increased visa-free access has prompted concerns about transparency, as well as global security.

There is also the risk that economies could become overly dependent on the capital inflows from these programmes. Joe Myers , , Formative Content. The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum. Up to 32 million people in West Africa could be forced to move by the climate crisis. It's time for the rest of the world to act. Here's what has to happen. Japan and Singapore have the world's most powerful passports, according to the Henley Passport Index, allowing them to enter countries without a visa.

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