A very interesting (draft of a) paper that discusses trade-offs between immigrants’ civil/political rights and the number of immigrants allowed. Is it better to decrease inequality within a rich country by treating immigrants well, or is it better to let in more immigrants with fewer rights?
My instinct is of course to let in more immigrants with fewer rights (but we might worry if that was a politically sustainable equilibrium). One possible solution to the dilemma would be to ensure national statistics treat immigrants and citizens differently. At the moment, some people are worried about ‘rising inequality’ or ‘median income stagnation’ in the US. But this is in large part due to a rise in immigration by very poor people, which increases naively-measured inequality, and drag down average income. If people were in the habit of breaking down these statistics, and showing ‘median household income for citizens, by race’, much of the effect would disappear.
A similar example is how the worrying decline of the labor market participation rate looks quite different when you break it down by age and sex—though still concerning!
“The Openness-Equality Trade-Off in Global Redistribution”
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2509305
A very interesting (draft of a) paper that discusses trade-offs between immigrants’ civil/political rights and the number of immigrants allowed. Is it better to decrease inequality within a rich country by treating immigrants well, or is it better to let in more immigrants with fewer rights?
Interesting draft, thanks for the link.
My instinct is of course to let in more immigrants with fewer rights (but we might worry if that was a politically sustainable equilibrium). One possible solution to the dilemma would be to ensure national statistics treat immigrants and citizens differently. At the moment, some people are worried about ‘rising inequality’ or ‘median income stagnation’ in the US. But this is in large part due to a rise in immigration by very poor people, which increases naively-measured inequality, and drag down average income. If people were in the habit of breaking down these statistics, and showing ‘median household income for citizens, by race’, much of the effect would disappear.
A similar example is how the worrying decline of the labor market participation rate looks quite different when you break it down by age and sex—though still concerning!