How to Attract Immigrants? Pull Factors in Past Theories

The push-pull theory is regarded as a modern framework in migration studies. This article challenges this view by tracing debates on attracting and retaining foreigners back to the seventeenth century. It compares four major economic theories and their policy prescriptions concerning immigration. Mercantilism held that to be wealthy, a sovereign state should possess gold and a large population. The article explores three other theories: cameralism, physiocracy, and classical economics. While cameralists held similar views to mercantilists, physiocrats and classical economists fundamentally disagreed. But did their theoretical disputes translate into divergent immigration prescriptions? This article shows that despite disagreements on wealth, money, and population, the four theories converged on an “overlapping consensus” regarding migration. After reviewing the major authors of each school, I reconstruct their arguments around three dilemmas. First, should migrants receive equal rights with natives or be privileged over them? Second, what is the nature of pull factors: are they political (rights, tolerance, freedom, participation), economic (fiscal relief, subventions), or social (cultural ethos, language, respect), geographical (climate, distance, mobility infrastructures)? Thirdly, what are the limits of attracting immigrants: are there numerical limits or socio-professional requirements, like skills selection? Although answers were similar across theories, these debates remain understudied in contemporary migration theory.