How free should the movement of people be compared to the movement of capital? Unlike those who defend a presumption in favour of symmetrical treatment, I suggest that the presumption in favour of free human movement is much stronger than the same presumption in favour of the free movement of capital. Against those who claim that capital ought to be freer to move than people, I argue that states have much stronger reasons, both of distributive justice and cultural integrity, to constrain capital movement than they have to restrict human movement. Further, the case for restricting skilled workers' right to exit their country in the case of brain drain is much weaker than the parallel case for restricting investors' right to exit from a country that faces a threat of capital flight. Overall, my argument supports the ‘reversed asymmetry thesis’: People should be much freer to move than capital.

Using a two-sector endogenous growth model, the speed of convergence is determined primarily by the gap in rates of return between physical and human capital. In closed economies, for a typical situation of having relatively less physical capital than in a steady state, the return on physical capital will be significantly high, whereas the return on human capital will be relatively low. This gap in rates of return is quite large when the economy is not at its steady state. In open economies, where human capital is nontradable, the gap in rates of return is small, as is the gap between the international interest rate (which is less than the closed economies return on physical capital) and the return on human capital. Convergence in open economies will be relatively slow, and convergence in closed economies will be relatively fast, and therefore there is little gain from financial liberalization.

Dans un modèle à deux pays et à horizon infini, dans lequel la mobilité ducapital est imparfaite, on présente une analyse dynamique de la transmissioninternationale des chocs qui affectent les dépenses publiques. Trois typesde financements d’une augmentation des dépenses publiques sont comparés:l’imposition des salaires, l’imposition des revenus du capital à la sourceet l’imposition des revenus du capital selon le principe de taxation à larésidence. L’imposition des salaires ou des revenus du capital à la sourcecrée une réduction du produit dans le pays qui mène cette politique et uneaugmentation du produit à court terme à l’étranger. L’imposition des revenusdu capital de tous les résidents conduit, en introduisant un canalsupplémentaire de transmission internationale, à une baisse de la productionmondiale. Malgré cette baisse, le bien-être progresse dans le pays quiaugmente ses dépenses publiques.