After thinking about it for a while, rate of return may not be a good indicator, at least for comparative analyses. Imagine two countries A and K. 10% of citizens of both these countries would prefer to live somewhere else.
In country A, the government doesn’t care a bit about emigration (if government exists in that country at all). The country is mainly producer of agricultural goods, with minimal international trade. Nearest country with substantially better living conditions, country X, is 3000 km away.
In country K, the government is afraid of all its citizens emigrating, and tries to make it as difficult as possible, by issuing passports only to loyal people, for instance. Emigration is portrayed as treason. X is a neigbour country.
Now, in country A (African type) there is no need for people to travel abroad, except emigration. Business travelers are rare, since there are almost no businesses owned by A’s citizens, and to travel 3000 km for pleasure is out of reach for almost all of A’s inhabitants. Therefore, meeting A’s citizen in X, we can expect that he is an emigrant with 99% probability, and the return rate would be in order of 1%.
In country K (Korean type) the people who can travel abroad are workers of government organisations sent on business trips, people from border areas coming to X to do some private business (if there are private businesses in K) and the K’s elite on vacations. Now, meeting K’s citizen in X, the probability that he is an emigrant is much lower.
So we have expected high return rate for A and low for K, whereas the average desire to emigrate can be the same.
This may be the reason of disagreement. Roberts has probably compared North Korea to African countries, and was surprised that not all travellers are emigrants. I have compared it to East European communist regimes and concluded that if half of the travellers never return, certainly even much of the loyal supporters of the regime betray it when they have an opportunity.
To make sensible analysis, we should take into account rather the ratio of emigration to overall population. Of course, such analysis would be distorted due to different difficulty of emigration from different countries. The return rate seems to overcome this distortion, but it probably brings at least as big own problems.
After thinking about it for a while, rate of return may not be a good indicator, at least for comparative analyses. Imagine two countries A and K. 10% of citizens of both these countries would prefer to live somewhere else.
In country A, the government doesn’t care a bit about emigration (if government exists in that country at all). The country is mainly producer of agricultural goods, with minimal international trade. Nearest country with substantially better living conditions, country X, is 3000 km away.
In country K, the government is afraid of all its citizens emigrating, and tries to make it as difficult as possible, by issuing passports only to loyal people, for instance. Emigration is portrayed as treason. X is a neigbour country.
Now, in country A (African type) there is no need for people to travel abroad, except emigration. Business travelers are rare, since there are almost no businesses owned by A’s citizens, and to travel 3000 km for pleasure is out of reach for almost all of A’s inhabitants. Therefore, meeting A’s citizen in X, we can expect that he is an emigrant with 99% probability, and the return rate would be in order of 1%.
In country K (Korean type) the people who can travel abroad are workers of government organisations sent on business trips, people from border areas coming to X to do some private business (if there are private businesses in K) and the K’s elite on vacations. Now, meeting K’s citizen in X, the probability that he is an emigrant is much lower.
So we have expected high return rate for A and low for K, whereas the average desire to emigrate can be the same.
This may be the reason of disagreement. Roberts has probably compared North Korea to African countries, and was surprised that not all travellers are emigrants. I have compared it to East European communist regimes and concluded that if half of the travellers never return, certainly even much of the loyal supporters of the regime betray it when they have an opportunity.
To make sensible analysis, we should take into account rather the ratio of emigration to overall population. Of course, such analysis would be distorted due to different difficulty of emigration from different countries. The return rate seems to overcome this distortion, but it probably brings at least as big own problems.
Maybe you should post the above comment on Roberts’s blog. (I’ve already posted mine.)
Done; my comment is awaiting moderation.