How migration makes the world brainier

MIGRATION SPREADS ideas. Often, good ones. Sometimes as simple as warm cassava buns stuffed with cheese.

Cristina Talacko moved to Australia because she married an Australian. Her foreign law degrees did not allow her to practise there so she started her own business. She noticed that her friends loved it when she served pão de queijo, a light, fluffy, buttery snack from her native Brazil. So she went back to Brazil and studied how to make the buns in bulk. She could not find the right machinery in Australia, so she imported it from Brazil and started selling what for Aussies was a novel (and gluten-free) treat. Business boomed. Now Ms Talacko exports tasty tucker to 25 countries.

Everywhere, immigrants are likelier than the native-born to start their own business. People who pack up and fly thousands of miles to start a new life obviously have get-up-and-go. Also, many countries do not recognise foreign qualifications, as Ms Talacko found, so migrants often become entrepreneurs. A survey in 2015 found that the most common surnames for founders of new firms in Italy were Hu, Chen and Singh, with Rossi a distant fourth.

The benefit for the host country is more than monetary. Yes, Ms Talacko employs Australians and pays a lot of tax. But she has also added a new snack to the Australian menu...