A market for citizenships: Should citizenship be commodified?
Bengtsson, Ingemar LU
(2023)
In Kyklos
76(4).
p.705-723
- Abstract
- Starting from the assumption that citizenship is valuable private property that would be even more valuable if it were transferable, the paper explores the idea of commodification of citizenship. The paper provides arguments in favor of commodification of citizenship and recommendations to how the market for citizenship should be designed. A market for citizenships could result in an improved matching between employer and employee when citizens swap citizenship with each other. Successful States would issue new citizenships and thus provide the possibility for a greater share of the world population to live and work within the countries with the best institutions. The combined effect would be a higher global productivity. Market prices on... (More)
- Starting from the assumption that citizenship is valuable private property that would be even more valuable if it were transferable, the paper explores the idea of commodification of citizenship. The paper provides arguments in favor of commodification of citizenship and recommendations to how the market for citizenship should be designed. A market for citizenships could result in an improved matching between employer and employee when citizens swap citizenship with each other. Successful States would issue new citizenships and thus provide the possibility for a greater share of the world population to live and work within the countries with the best institutions. The combined effect would be a higher global productivity. Market prices on citizenships would provide a robust indicator of institutional quality and thus provide politicians with information on voters´ preferences and it would also provide voters with information on the quality of the work of the government. The market value of a tradable citizenship is also found to be a promising candidate as tax base for a redistributive tax on a global level that could address some of the inherit inequality inherit in the current distribution of citizenships. (Less)
- Abstract (Swedish)
- Starting from the assumption that citizenship is propertythat would be more valuable if it were transferable, the paper explores the idea of commodification of citizenship. The paper provides arguments in favor of commodification and recommendations to how the market for citizenships should be designed. A market for citizenships could result in an improved matching between employer and employee when citizens swap citizenship with each other. Successful States could issue new citizenships and thus make itpossible for a greater share of the world population to liveand work within the countries with the best institutions. The combined effect would be a higher global productivity. Additionally, market prices on citizenships would... (More)
- Starting from the assumption that citizenship is propertythat would be more valuable if it were transferable, the paper explores the idea of commodification of citizenship. The paper provides arguments in favor of commodification and recommendations to how the market for citizenships should be designed. A market for citizenships could result in an improved matching between employer and employee when citizens swap citizenship with each other. Successful States could issue new citizenships and thus make itpossible for a greater share of the world population to liveand work within the countries with the best institutions. The combined effect would be a higher global productivity. Additionally, market prices on citizenships would provideinformation on institutional quality and thus provide politicians with information on voters' preferences as well as voters with information on the quality of the work of the government. The market value of a tradable citizenship is also found to be a candidate as tax base for a redistributive tax on a global level that could address some of the inherent inequality with birthright citizenships. Those potential benefits aside, several problems with a market for citizenship are also found and discussed, among those the age-dependent value of citizenships. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/448db4a6-ae45-472c-9a8b-881425173730
- author
- Bengtsson, Ingemar
LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2023-10-02
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- Citizenship, Commodification, Human rights, Markets, Property rights, citizenship, commodification, human rights, price mechanism, markets
- in
- Kyklos
- volume
- 76
- issue
- 4
- pages
- 19 pages
- publisher
- Wiley-Blackwell
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85164115190
- ISSN
- 0023-5962
- DOI
- 10.1111/kykl.12347
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 448db4a6-ae45-472c-9a8b-881425173730
- date added to LUP
- 2023-04-06 09:52:13
- date last changed
- 2023-10-16 13:45:25
@article{448db4a6-ae45-472c-9a8b-881425173730,
abstract = {{Starting from the assumption that citizenship is valuable private property that would be even more valuable if it were transferable, the paper explores the idea of commodification of citizenship. The paper provides arguments in favor of commodification of citizenship and recommendations to how the market for citizenship should be designed. A market for citizenships could result in an improved matching between employer and employee when citizens swap citizenship with each other. Successful States would issue new citizenships and thus provide the possibility for a greater share of the world population to live and work within the countries with the best institutions. The combined effect would be a higher global productivity. Market prices on citizenships would provide a robust indicator of institutional quality and thus provide politicians with information on voters´ preferences and it would also provide voters with information on the quality of the work of the government. The market value of a tradable citizenship is also found to be a promising candidate as tax base for a redistributive tax on a global level that could address some of the inherit inequality inherit in the current distribution of citizenships.}},
author = {{Bengtsson, Ingemar}},
issn = {{0023-5962}},
keywords = {{Citizenship; Commodification; Human rights; Markets; Property rights; citizenship; commodification; human rights; price mechanism; markets}},
language = {{eng}},
month = {{10}},
number = {{4}},
pages = {{705--723}},
publisher = {{Wiley-Blackwell}},
series = {{Kyklos}},
title = {{A market for citizenships: Should citizenship be commodified?}},
url = {{https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/files/142834038/A_market_for_citizenship_2021_06_14_submitted_version.pdf}},
doi = {{10.1111/kykl.12347}},
volume = {{76}},
year = {{2023}},
}