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challenge for development practitioners is to design measures that willalleviate weaknesses in a local economy and facilitate the absorption ofremittances so that their expenditure or investment can play a transformativedevelopmental role.4.2. Policies for Development in Receiving AreasThe papers by Cai Fang and Wang Dewen on China and by Susan Carterand Richard Sutch on the United States are written to inform debates overpolicies that restrict the entry of internal and international migrant workersinto urban labor markets. In the context of China’s industrialization andtransition from a planned to a market economy, Cai and Wang advocatefor the abolition of both migration restrictions imposed by the hukousystem and state monopolies, which give discriminatory protection tothe employment of urban workers. While Carter and Sutch’s researchfocuses on the entry of migrant workers into U.S. urban labor markets,also during a historical period of industrial expansion, their analysis isintended to inform contemporary debates about immigration restrictionsthat are partly based on the belief that immigrant employment adverselyaffects native workers. Both analyses contend that measures to restrict theentry of migrant workers into urban and industrial labor markets are eitherunnecessary or counterproductive. Rather than adversely affecting urbanemployment, they contend, migrant workers contribute to urbanization andfacilitate technological innovation and economies of scale in production,contributing to an increase in consumer demands and economic expansionthat will increase employment and raise wages.However mutually informative one might find the economic models orempirical examples of contemporary China and early twentieth centuryUnited States, both papers leave somewhat uncertain the relationship ofmigration to industrial development during different phases of economiccycles. Both case studies find that that migration provides labor powerthat furthers industrial growth. But does labor migration always makea positive contribution? The period of rapid U.S. industrial expansionconsidered by Carter and Sutch ended with the economic depression andmassive unemployment of the 1930s. It seems unlikely that increasedimmigration, which was in fact cut off by the 1924 Immigration Act, wouldhave had a positive impact on employment and growth during this periodof decline. This raises the question of the point in an economic cycle atwhich tightening or loosening restrictions on immigration might precipitatelabor shortages or surpluses. Of course, even if such market timing werepossible, the decision to intervene would reflect a political choice ratherthan an insight drawn from research and analysis.363