In the past 50 years, the MENA region has been integrated to the world economy through two main channels: the sale of oil, and labor migration. Labor migration, in retrospect, acted as the main way to redistribute oil revenues from the oil exporting to the importing countries, especially those in the Mashrek region, greatly benefitting millions of households. The migration of mostly unskilled workers from the Maghreb to Europe, during its period of fast growth, played a similar role. But migration will almost certainly never again boom as it did in the past.
