Anonymous asked:
Is there a sense in which importing immigrants from low-income nations will lower the average wealth of a country? It's true that the huddled masses yearning to breathe free are what made New York the greatest city in the world, but at the same time, I suspect many New Yorkers would trade all that for life in one of the high-income European cities that can afford to renovate its subways and keep its streets from smelling like garbage.
I think you’re right to ask “Is there a sense?”
That is, the naive answer is like the story of the economists in the bar. Bill Gates walks in, and the economists start dancing and cheering, shouting “Hooray! On average, everyone in this bar is really rich right now!”
A lot of worries about immigration sound kind of like economists in a bar, and then a homeless guy walks in, and then they start crying and sobbing because now on average the people in the bar are poorer.
I think there are some people kind of developing the intellectual work it would take to be more sophisticated than this - like Garett Jones - but I’m not convinced that actual immigration opponents have read them or are familiar with them.
glimmersight
