| Abstract: | This paper provides an institutionalist analysis of the impasse over labor issues that has stalled much needed reform of U.S. immigration policy. While it is unlikely that institutional economics can dislodge a century of conventional wisdom regarding the impact of immigrants on the labor market, a more modest goal is to refute the mainstream economic assertion that what the United States needs to do is to reduce the supply of immigrants, a conclusion that fuels the disgraceful "war on immigrants" that has long plagued reasonable debate over immigration policy. |
