Bush and Rodrik: Immigration Bedfellows
Kim Strassel has a long interview with George W Bush on his immigration bill in the WSJ today, as Dani Rodrik takes over the equivalent NYT real-estate with his own argument in favor of it. The two men...
View ArticleComplaining About the Immigration Points System
The immigration debate sure does throw together some strange bedfellows. Today, George Borjas and Robert Reich both express misgivings with the points-based system which will be used to screen...
View ArticleLant Pritchett’s Big Idea
Did you not have enough time to read the Jason DeParle article on Lant Pritchett in the New York Times on Sunday? I have to admit that I skipped it: because DeParle managed to persuade his editors to...
View ArticleRich Immigrants
Paul Krugman and Chris Dillow both post interesting blog entries today, and the intersection of the two is even more interesting, I think. Krugman notes that London seems to be becoming a "rentier...
View ArticleYou Just Can’t Find the Skilled Blue-Collar Workers These Days
When it comes to reasons for electricity prices going through the roof, the inability of your local utility company to find qualified line technicians is not going to be very high up the list. But when...
View ArticleThe USA’s Ridiculous Border Controls
In order to keep New York attractive as an international financial center, it has to be reasonably easy for foreigners to get in and out. Not that the Department of Homeland Security seems to care....
View ArticleThe H1-B Fiasco, Redux
The H-1B fiasco is back! Last year, faced with 123,480 applications in two days for a pool of just 65,000 H-1B visas, the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services was forced to run a lottery to...
View ArticleOil Prices Up, Illegal Immigration Down?
Mark Thoma has a rather interesting idea: Producers may shift production closer to the markets where the goods are sold as transportation costs increase with energy prices. If so, it’s possible that...
View ArticleLaughing at Alan Greenspan
I’m no big fan of Alan Greenspan or his pronouncements, especially those where he tries to persuade us that he wasn’t wrong in the past, he was right. There’s a classic example in his latest interview...
View ArticleCounterintuitive Result of the Day, Brain Drain Edition
The past 20 years have not been a good time to be of Indian origin in Fiji. As a result, many Indians in Fiji have emigrated to Commonwealth countries such as Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, making...
View ArticleThe H1-B Fiasco
The NYT had an interesting one-two punch on the subject of H-1B visas this weekend. Saturday saw a news article by Julia Preston, reporting the chaos at the IRS Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration...
View ArticleImmigration Datapoint of the Day
From Carlyle Group’s Robert Grady: Look at all the technology companies which have been backed by venture capital – the kind of companies which have driven US growth over the past 30 years or more. It...
View ArticleThe Effects of Illegal Workers on Productivity
Peter Orszag of the CBO made a number of interesting points this morning. He’s a fiscally conservative, left-leaning economist, and I’m sure that he would agree with Dean Baker on many, many things....
View ArticleFantastic News on Immigration
The immigration agreement which has been hammered out between the Senate and the White House is some of the best news I’ve heard in ages, and I’m keeping lots of fingers and toes crossed that somehow...
View ArticleCalculating the Cost of Emigrating
Sometimes, economics just seems to break down. Here’s George Borjas, on the economics of emigration, specifically from Puerto Rico to mainland US: Between 30 to 40 percent of the Puerto Rican...
View ArticleThe Fate of Extraordinary Aliens Under the Immigration Bill
The Washington Post is worried about the future of the EB-1 green card for extraordinary aliens. It’s the green card which allowed the likes of John Lennon and Albert Einstein into the country, and is...
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