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We Wanted Workers
In early fall 2016, Norton will be publishing my latest book: We Wanted Workers: Unraveling the Immigration Narrative. I am really excited about it. It is by far the most readable thing I have written,...
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On Mariel
A couple of readers of early drafts of We Wanted Workers made some comments last spring that planted an idea in my head: perhaps it was time to revisit Mariel and see what we could learn from that...
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Germany and Open Borders
Last month’s issue of the Journal of Economic Literature published my take on the perceived economic benefits from open borders. Some advocates claim that open borders would generate tens of trillions...
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My Favorite Textbook
Like Greg Mankiw, I too have a favorite textbook, except mine is this one. I found out a few days ago about the Open Syllabus Project, which ranked textbook usage in economics (and other fields). And I...
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Cracks in the Wall
David Autor, David Dorn, and Gordon Hanson have been producing a steady stream of very important papers that examine and measure the labor market impacts of trade. Their latest NBER working paper is a...
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The Slowdown in Immigrant Assimilation
The second paper of mine that got published in the past few weeks deals with trends in the economic assimilation of immigrants–the rate at which their earnings catch up with those of native workers....
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Incentives and Food Stamps
The one thing that economics teaches us over and over again–and the one lesson that those who don’t like the implications ignore over and over again as well–is that incentives matter. Robert Rector and...
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Why Is High-Skill Immigration Beneficial?
A few days ago I was having a discussion about high-skill immigration with some people who should know better. It suddenly struck me that even though everyone favors more high-skill immigration, there...
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Republicans and Immigration
I’ve been watching the civil war over immigration in the Republican party with ever-increasing interest. And let’s be honest–this really is a war for the soul of the party as there is almost nothing in...
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High-Skill Immigration: Experimental Evidence
A couple of weeks ago I promised to summarize the evidence on whether high-skill immigration generates the productivity spillovers that would produce large economic gains for natives. I apologize for...
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High-Skill Immigration: The H-1B Program
In previous posts (here and here), I argued that we should care about high-skill immigration because of the possibility that high-skill immigrants import knowledge and capabilities that “rub off” on...
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Channeling Krugman
Paul Krugman had a very interesting blog post about trade yesterday. Here’s some of what he said (but it’s definitely worth reading in full): Much of the elite defense of globalization is basically...
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Placing the Blame
I ran across this quote from Tony Blair earlier today and it seemed noteworthy. The ex-Prime Minister is trying to find someone to blame for the economic dislocations that immigration inevitably...
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Senate Testimony
I testified this morning before the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest. It’s something I haven’t done in years, but I have to admit that it was fun. Here is a copy of my...
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Employment of Undocumented Immigrants
Although there have been many attempts to regularize the status of the 11 million undocumented persons in the country, it is difficult to predict the economic impact of such regularization. The reason...
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Glenn and I
Glenn Loury and I talked about immigration last week as part of his Bloggingheads series, with much of the discussion focusing on the themes emphasized in my forthcoming book, We Wanted Workers. Glenn...
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An Empirical Exercise: Mariel
The immigration debate is very contentious, with “factual” claims coming from every which way. Not surprisingly, I often hear people say that “you can’t believe anything anymore because you don’t...
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Interview in Dagens Nyheter
A few weeks ago, journalists from the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter visited my office at Harvard to conduct a long interview. The newspaper has just published the news story. It’s in Swedish, so...
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Presenting the Mariel Paper
I’ve been traveling almost nonstop for the past 6 weeks (three times to Europe, twice to New York City, once to Washington, DC). On one of those trips, I presented my Mariel paper in the Workshop on...
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On Brexit
There’s not much I can add that hasn’t already been said. But Larry Summers makes a point that touches on the themes in We Wanted Workers, so I wanted to highlight the point: The political challenge in...
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