Solving the Misesian migration conundrum

This paper reviews Ludwig Von Mises’ concerns surrounding unrestricted immigration and relates them to the current debate surrounding immigrants’ impact on destination countries’ institutions. It then outlines a policy of generally unrestricted immigration with selective restrictions that addresses Mises’ concerns and concerns about destination country institutions, while still achieving the majority of the economic gains that unrestricted immigration is forecast to achieve.

     

GENDER DIFFERENCES IN NATIVE PREFERENCES TOWARD UNDOCUMENTED AND LEGAL IMMIGRATION: EVIDENCE FROM SAN DIEGO

The literature has noted that native views about legal as opposed to undocumented immigration in the United States differ. Furthermore, native views about immigration are known to vary by gender. Yet, most surveys do not inquire native men and women about their views with regards to the two distinct immigrant groups, thus impeding an analysis of differences in preferences toward legal and undocumented immigrants from the same sample of natives. Using a recent San Diego County survey, we examine differences in native male and female opinions with regard to legal and undocumented immigration and their determinants. Native preferences toward immigration appear to significantly differ by gender as well as according to immigrants' legal status. In addition, public finance and welfare concerns are among the key factors driving native male and female preferences toward legal and undocumented immigration. However, native women's attitudes are also impacted by concerns regarding the social integration and economic assimilation of undocumented immigrants possibly related to the alleged prejudice factor. (JEL J61, F22)     

EFFECTS OF IMMIGRANTS ON THE 1980–1990 U.S. WAGE EXPERIENCE

This paper questions the claim that U.S. immigration should be reduced because the economy can no longer absorb immigrants as it has in the past. Analysis of male hourly wages shows that the effect of immigration on wages did not change between 1980 and 1990. Further, immigration had no negative effects on wages in 1980 or 1990. These results suggest that the capacity of the labor market to absorb immigrants has not been reduced. Additional analysis shows that, controlling for personal characteristics, the hourly wages of the average native and immigrant worker in areas of high and medium immigration relative to areas of low immigration increased between 1980 and 1990. However, Latino immigrants are affected negatively by immigration.     

Electoral systems and immigration

Unexplored stylized facts on OECD countries suggest that plurality electoral systems are associated with higher openness to immigration. We propose an explanation based on a retrospective voting model where immigration hurts voters but benefits a rent-seeking policymaker who appropriates part of the income generated by immigrants. To be reappointed, the policymaker must distribute the compensation. With respect to proportional systems, plurality systems make it possible to compensate only a few decisive districts and leave after-compensation rents higher, therefore producing higher immigration. In our model, non-decisive districts receive no compensation at all under both electoral systems, providing a rationale for widespread anti-immigration attitudes. Notably, our results also help to explain why governments often seem more pro-immigration than do voters. Finally, our model predicts that opposition to immigration is more geographically dispersed in plurality systems. Basic evidence supports this prediction.     

America's post-war immigration policy

This article provides a historical perspective on immigration policy in the US after World War II and assesses the present situation. US immigration and refugee policy has undergone significant change since World War II. The McCarran-Walter Act of 1952, which instituted a system of proportional quotas based on national origins, was discarded in 1965 following years of criticism that it discriminated against nonwhites. Third World immigrants, especially from Asia and the Americas, have benefited from the immigration laws. However, the problems resulting from unrestricted and undifferentiated immigration are now becoming apparent, even to liberal critics of previous national origins policies. During the 1970s, there was a 61% increase in the number of Mexican nationals in the US and Mexicans currently comprise over 20% of the population in 40 Congressional districts in 8 states. 83.3% of legal immigrants, and all illegal immigrants, are of non-European descent--a fact that may retard their assimilation and intensify ethnic tensions. There is a danger that the concept of national borders may become superfluous. The theoreticval liberalism of the 1950s and 1960s is, in the 1970s, being confronted with the reality of large numbers of immigrants unable and unwilling to be absorbed into a previously European-dominated country. It is concluded that the enforced application of the concept of equality in matters of immigration has not been the panacea that its liberal proponents envisioned.     

Housing prices and crime perception

In this article, we combine data from the housing market with data from a victimization survey to estimate the effect of crime perception on housing prices in the City of Barcelona from 2004 to 2006. Using dwelling data and a hedonic price model (using both OLS and quantile regressions), in the first stage, we estimate the shadow price of the location of dwellings. In the second stage, we analyse the impact of crime perception, after controlling for other district characteristics such as local public spending and immigration, on this locational valuation. After accounting for the possible endogeneity of crime and housing prices, our findings suggest that crime exerts relevant costs beyond its direct costs. Indeed, a one standard deviation increase in perceived security is associated with a 0.57 % increase in the valuation of districts. Moreover, in districts perceived as being less safe than the average for the City of Barcelona, houses are highly discounted. Less safe districts have on average a valuation that is 1.27 % lower.     

Do employee dimension ratings reflect employee performance? Evidence from MSCI’s ESG database

We investigate whether the ratings of employee dimension in MSCI’s ESG database reflect employee performance of a firm. Using a large panel sample with 23,739 observations from 1991 to 2015, we find a significant positive relation between employee performance and employee dimension ratings. To mitigate concerns about endogeneity issues and robustness of our study, we perform various additional tests and still obtain consistent results. Overall, our findings suggest that the employee dimension ratings in MSCI’s ESG database accurately reflect employee performance.     

OPENING THE FLOODGATES: PARTIAL AND GENERAL EQUILIBRIUM ADJUSTMENTS TO LABOR IMMIGRATION

We investigate the impact of a large immigration shock on occupational wages. We develop a general equilibrium model where individuals sort into occupations and confront testable hypotheses with data. To identify the effect of the labor supply shock, we introduce a novel instrument that exploits that immigrants systematically sort into different occupations than natives. We study the immigration wave to Norway after the Eastern enlargement and find that immigration led to lower relative occupational wages. A quantification of the general equilibrium shows welfare effects of immigration close to zero for natives, but negative effects for the pre-existing population of immigrants.     

An introduction to the economics of immigration in OECD countries

The share of the foreign-born population in member countries of the OECD is increasing, and this article summarizes economics research on the effects of immigration in those nations. Four broad topics are addressed: labour market issues, fiscal questions, the political economy of immigration, and productivity and international trade. Extreme concerns about deleterious labour market and fiscal impacts following from new immigrants are not found to be warranted. However, it is also clear that government policies and practices regarding the selection and integration of new migrants affect labour market, fiscal, social and cultural outcomes. Policies that are well informed, well crafted and well executed beneficially improve population welfare.     

Wish you were here? Quasi-experimental evidence on the effect of education on self-reported attitude toward immigrants

We use European Social Survey and Labour Force Survey data from 2002 to 2012 to estimate the causal effect of years of education on European natives׳ opinion toward immigration, by exploiting the exogenous discontinuity generated by reforms in compulsory education in Europe in the 1940s through the 1990s. Our findings show that higher levels of education lead to a more positive reported attitude toward immigrants. We also investigate the mechanisms behind the effect of education on reported attitudes by evaluating both economic and non-economic channels. We find that higher levels of education place individuals in occupations that are less exposed to the negative effects of migration, although not in sectors/occupations where the share of migrants is necessarily smaller, suggesting that migrants and low-educated natives may be complementary rather than substitutes in the labour market. In addition, education alters values and the cognitive assessment of the role of immigration in host societies, with a positive effect on reported attitude toward diversity and on the assessment of immigration׳s role in host countries. Our findings suggest that education as a policy instrument can increase social cohesion in societies that are subject to large immigration flows.     

Immigration, fertility, and human capital: A model of economic decline of the West

I show how the influences of unskilled immigration, differential fertility between immigrants and the local indigenous population, and incentives for investment in human capital combine to predict the decline of the West. In particular, indigenous low-skilled workers lose from unskilled immigration even if the indigenous low-skilled workers do not finance redistribution, do not compete with immigrants in the labor market, and do not compete with immigrants for publicly financed income transfers. For the economy at large, high-fertility unskilled immigrants and a low-fertility indigenous population result in economic decline through reduced human capital accumulation and reduced growth of per-capita output.     

Saving women and bordering Europe: narratives of “Migrants’ Sexual Violence” and geopolitical imaginaries in Russia and Sweden

ABSTRACT

This article maps the specific ways in which gendered and racialized boundary constructs create conditions of possibility for certain bordering practices. Connecting Critical Border Studies with feminist theories of geopolitics, it examines media reporting in Russia and Sweden about “migrants‘ sexual violence” in the wake of the 2015 New Years‘ events in Cologne. Despite contextual differences, in both countries these events were narrated as symbolic in negotiating Europe and its borders. In Russia, the events were connected to a story of a Russian girl in Berlin being raped by migrants (a story later revealed to be fabricated) and a narrative of Europe collapsing because of immigration. In Sweden, the events were connected to reports of sexual violence at festivals, sparking a debate about “Swedish values” of gender equality being endangered by immigration. The article argues, firstly, that narratives of migrants‘ sexual violence performed bordering functions in both the symbolic sense of delineating national identity and Europeanness, and the concrete sense of legitimating a stricter border regime. Secondly, it argues that the narratives performed that function only by tapping into local geopolitical narratives, in the Russian case on the country‘s ambivalent relation to Europe, and in Sweden the idea of gender exceptionalism.     

How much do immigration and trade affect labor market outcomes?

"This paper provides new estimates of the impact of immigration and trade on the U.S. labor market.... We examine the relation between economic outcomes for native workers and immigrant flows to regional labor markets.... We...use the factor proportions approach to examine the contributions of immigration and trade to recent changes in U.S. educational wage differentials and attempt to provide a broader assessment of the impact of immigration on the incomes of U.S. natives." Comments and discussion by John DiNardo, John M. Abowd, and others are included (pp. 68-85).     

On the economics of immigration: some empirical evidence for Switzerland

The paper sheds light on the question of whether immigration represents a cost factor or an economic benefit for the host society. Starting with some conceptual issues of immigration research, it then gives some theoretical and empirical insights on this question. In particular, empirical evidence on the distributional effects of immigration is presented for Switzerland. Based on a large first-hand data set by the Swiss Statistical Office, this case study shows that in 1990, the presence of resident foreigners has not put additional strain on the public coffers, but that, on the contrary, there was a favourable financial effect for the native population. An overall judgement on the distribution issue, with special attention given to public goods and club goods, is thus possible.     

International migration and the welfare state revisited

Immigration is a controversial topic in most developed economies. The presence of a redistributive welfare state in all major immigrant host countries creates a margin on which immigration affects native welfare. The primary focus of the paper is whether a large intake of immigrants reduces welfare state effort. It is usually argued that steady increases in immigration lead to public pressure for lower levels of publicly-funded social expenditures. In contrastz to the earlier empirical literature on this topic, we find little evidence in favour of this hypothesis. While immigration does have a relatively modest effect on the welfare state, if anything there is some support for the view that a greater influx of immigrants has lead policy-makers to increase welfare state spending.     

Do asylum-seekers respond to policy changes? Evidence from the Swedish–Syrian case*

Do asylum-seekers respond to policy changes in their destination country, and to what extent? We approach this question by using high-frequency data, and we focus on a sudden liberalization in Swedish policy toward Syrian asylum-seekers, which implied permanent instead of temporary residence. We show a clear and fast, yet temporary, increase in Syrian asylum applications in Sweden after the policy change. Also, the policy caused a shift – not limited to the short term – in the share of individuals arriving without family, and consequently in the share applying for family reunification. Our study adds quasi-experimental evidence to the literature on inter-country asylum flows and migration policy.     

Government compensation and citizen support for immigration openness

This paper explores how government compensation programs like unemployment insurance and worker training may influence citizen attitudes about immigration openness. It considers several different arguments, including the proposition that social welfare programs may induce less-educated citizens to feel more negatively about their class identity, thus pushing them toward an exclusionary national identity with greater opposition to immigration openness. Using data from the International Social Survey Program's 2013 National Identity module with more than 20,000 respondents from 24 developed democracies, it reports that greater government compensation can be associated with less supportive attitudes for the least educated with a diminishing negative effect for more educated citizens. Consistent with an identity shift argument for why less-educated citizens might become more hostile toward immigration openness with greater government compensation, it also reports that greater compensation is associated with a more exclusionary national identity for less-educated citizens.     

Open borders

There is a large body of evidence indicating that cross-country differences in income levels are associated with differences in productivity. If workers are much more productive in one country than in another, restrictions on immigration lead to large efficiency losses. The paper quantifies these losses, using a model in which efficiency differences are labor-augmenting, and free trade in product markets leads to factor price equalization, so that wages are equal across countries when measured in efficiency units of labor. The estimated gains from removing immigration restrictions are huge. Using a simple static model of migration costs, the estimated net gains from open borders are about the same as the gains from a growth miracle that more than doubles the income level in less-developed countries.     

Immigration vs. poverty: Causal impact on demand for redistribution in a survey experiment

We investigate how demand for both the financing and the provision of redistributive policies is affected by information about immigration and poverty. Information about immigration has a positive impact on desired tax progressivity among low-income respondents and a negative one among higher income earners. Information about poverty has no impact. On the provision side, middle- and high-income respondents increase desired public education expenditure in response to poverty, while low-income respondents reduce desired education spending in response to immigration. These heterogeneities are consistent with protectionist reactions to immigration and poverty.     

“Restrict foreigners,not robots”: Partisan responses to automation threat

Recent scholarship on technological change highlights its negative impacts on employment and wages. However, a decade of nationally representative surveys show that Americans hold favorable views toward technology despite concerns over labor displacement. How do people cope with employment threats from a trend they consider desirable? Using a survey experiment, this paper argues that people opt to buffer domestic workers from technological threats with substitute policies against outgroups that they believe could improve wages and employment prospects. Specifically, direct cues about technological displacement make Republicans more likely to demand tighter restrictions on immigration and Democrats more likely to support higher tariffs. In other words, citizens respond to automation anxiety by blaming and penalizing groups that they consider unwelcome or objectionable, depending on their partisanship. Respondents remained reluctant to express support for technological restrictions. Thus, automation anxiety may intensify resistance to globalization, but not necessarily technology.