![Do passports restrict economic growth?](https://thisismy.politics.blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/07abe-cznmcy1wcml2yxrll3jhd3bpegvsx2ltywdlcy93zwjzaxrlx2nvbnrlbnqvbhivaxmxmzc0mi1pbwfnzs1rd3z3c3dres5qcgc.jpg?w=1024)
This is an abridged version of a great BBC article ‘Do passports restrict economic growth?‘, also available as a podcast, with just a few notes of my own (I will write a longer post on it later) for those of my friends/readers who are short on time.
“What would we English say if we could not go from London to the Crystal Palace or from Manchester to Stockport without a passport or police officer at our heels? Depend upon it, we are not half enough grateful to God for our national privileges.” So wrote an English publisher named John Gadsby, travelling through Europe in the mid-19th Century.
For most of history, passports were neither so ubiquitous nor so routine.
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