IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/123523.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Do passports pay off? Assessing the economic outcomes of citizenship by investment programs

Author

Listed:
  • Surak, Kristin

Abstract

Increasingly countries are adopting programs that allow investors to qualify for citizenship based on the purchase of real estate, bonds, or businesses, or on a donation to the government. States often cite economic need behind their implementation of such ‘citizenship by investment’ (CBI) schemes, yet little research has analyzed their economic impacts. Does the sale of citizenship bring positive economic benefits? To answer this question, this article draws on a new database, alongside nine years of qualitative research, to dissect the economic dynamics and outcomes of the programs. It first offers a general comparison of the macroeconomic impact of the nine largest CBI programs globally. It then turns to the countries that are most reliant on CBI as an income source to evaluate the significance of the funds to their economic health. The analysis highlights the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on demand for and the economic outcomes of the programs. It also addresses important methodological issues when evaluating the economic outcomes of programs. The conclusion discusses several points to consider in refining programs to facilitate wider economic growth.

Suggested Citation

  • Surak, Kristin, 2024. "Do passports pay off? Assessing the economic outcomes of citizenship by investment programs," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 123523, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:123523
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/123523/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. International Monetary Fund, 2020. "Malta: 2020 Article IV Consultation-Press Release and Staff Report," IMF Staff Country Reports 2020/098, International Monetary Fund.
    2. International Monetary Fund, 2020. "Republic of Kazakhstan: 2019 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; and Staff Report," IMF Staff Country Reports 2020/032, International Monetary Fund.
    3. International Monetary Fund, 2020. "St. Lucia: 2019 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; and Staff Report," IMF Staff Country Reports 2020/054, International Monetary Fund.
    4. International Monetary Fund, 2020. "Philippines: 2019 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; and Staff Report," IMF Staff Country Reports 2020/036, International Monetary Fund.
    5. International Monetary Fund, 2020. "Republic of San Marino: 2020 Article IV Consultation-Press Release and Staff Report," IMF Staff Country Reports 2020/093, International Monetary Fund.
    6. International Monetary Fund, 2020. "Finland: 2019 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; and Staff Report," IMF Staff Country Reports 2020/005, International Monetary Fund.
    7. International Monetary Fund, 2020. "Panama: 2020 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; and Staff Report," IMF Staff Country Reports 2020/124, International Monetary Fund.
    8. International Monetary Fund, 2020. "Mexico: 2020 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; and Staff Report," IMF Staff Country Reports 2020/293, International Monetary Fund.
    9. International Monetary Fund, 2020. "Republic of Croatia: 2019 Article IV Consultation-Press Release and Staff Report," IMF Staff Country Reports 2020/050, International Monetary Fund.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Costola, Michele & Lorusso, Marco, 2022. "Spillovers among energy commodities and the Russian stock market," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 28(C).
    2. Amparo Ba'illo & Javier C'arcamo & Carlos Mora-Corral, 2021. "Extremal points of Lorenz curves and applications to inequality analysis," Papers 2103.03286, arXiv.org.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    citizenship; Citizenship by investment; dependency; golden passports; mobility;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics
    • N0 - Economic History - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:123523. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.