Saturday, October 22, 2011

Should American Immigration = Emmigration? What's the best ratio for the world?

Yglesias is making his asshole case for more immigration to the US on the grounds of "national greatness". What's best for global welfare, factoring in optimized economic growth, climate management, etc.? I think the default would be immigration equaling emmigration. Beyond that, what's best for the world? Is there a coordination problem here that needs to be solved. And beyond the US, how should the global population be sorting itself for the global welfare?

Who are the experts thinking about this?

4 comments:

  1. If you think the current size/ratio of the population is optimal that makes sense. But if you accept the economists argument that most people worldwide improve their productivity dramatically by moving to the U.S you'd want immigration to exceed emigration.

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  2. " But if you accept the economists argument that most people worldwide improve their productivity dramatically by moving to the U.S you'd want immigration to exceed emigration."

    That's an asshole argument that has no pretense of looking at negative externalities, noneconomic factors, or how non-u.s. total global productivity would be affected by such a move. Also risk mitigating geographic diversification.

    It reminds me more of an absolutist black/white posture for lower taxes or central planning of all economic activity than a technocratic approach towards policy optimization.

    Hopefully Anonymous

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  3. I probably should have added a "ceteris paribus" there. I agree there can be negative externalities and other such factors. Caplan & Lant Pritchett (separately, and details probably differed) had a compromise proposal that immigrants pay a tax (I'm not sure any economists have done calculations for what the result should be), not receive certain services, which would mitigate some of those issues. I also want to screen immigrants for more desirable characteristics like higher skills, as in Canada or Australia. The U.S can afford to be a chooser rather than a beggar.

    I haven't given much though to the effects on productivity elsewhere or geographic diversification.

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  4. "I haven't given much though to the effects on productivity elsewhere or geographic diversification."

    That's what I meant by technocratic optimization and the consideration of negative externalities, etc. -and what constitutes an asshole argument. A "best for america" approach is an asshole approach from the perspective of global welfare. It's not suprising that it deteriorates fairly easily to a "best for American subfaction" approach.

    Hopefully Anonymous

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