Passports for purchase: Open Citizenship Doors around the World

Kate Springer cites Dr. DeMartino in her article on purchased residency.

George DeMartino, a professor of international economics and ethics at the University of Denver, suggests CIPs could cause unintended side effects.

“These programs do not ensure a win-win solution to the problem of capital scarcity in poorer countries,” explains DeMartino. “They are just as apt to represent beggar-thy-neighbor strategies — and this problem is exacerbated when the country with the CIP is relatively wealthy and the investors come from relatively low-income countries,” says DeMartino. There is also a potentially more serious problem, he says, which involves politics. “Programs such as these threaten to diminish political fraternity by affording special privileges to the already privileged,” explains DeMartino. “They permit those with the least need to migrate and achieve citizenship in a new country the greatest opportunity to do so, while those far more desperate to migrate, such as those facing dire economic circumstances at home, are fully excluded from the benefits of these programs. The programs are not the cause of this inequality, but they amplify it.”