US COMPETITIVE POSITION AND CAPITAL-INVESTMENT FLOWS IN THE ECONOMIC CITIZEN MARKET - CONSTRAINTS AND OPPORTUNITIES OF THE US INVESTOR PROGRAM

Many countries hail economic citizenship as the new mechanism for enco uraging capital mobility and economic development. Economic citizenshi p is the process of granting citizenship or residency to foreign indiv iduals who have investment capital that will create jobs for citizens in the immigrant receiving country. Many developing and developed coun tries, including the Commonwealth of Dominica and Belize, Canada, Aust ralia, and the United States, have embraced this concept with hopes of massive capital inflows to their countries. While this investment mea sure has been successful in a few countries, the U.S. has only been ab le to attract less than 10% annually of the targeted number of investo rs through this strategy. The U.S. has been further from its targeted annual allocation of visas than Dominica and Canada. The Economic Citi zenship Program has less potential of affecting a small nation's level s of investment than a large one's, A number of socio-political and ec onomic reasons, including program cost and social adjustment, cause a slow influx of new immigrants and investments to the U.S.