Read on Twitter
A few facts and insights about immigration from this recent NBER Summer Institute talk by Gordon Hanson:
thread (1/n)
thread (1/n)
"We still only have 3.3% of the world population living in a country other than in which they were born ...
but we have witnessed the largest increase in global labor flows in more than a century in the last twenty years."
(2/n)
but we have witnessed the largest increase in global labor flows in more than a century in the last twenty years."
(2/n)
Impacts of immigration:
"Something we don't spend nearly enough time talking about is that immigration represents a form of insurance against very severe shocks related to famine, pestilence, and war"
(3/n)
"Something we don't spend nearly enough time talking about is that immigration represents a form of insurance against very severe shocks related to famine, pestilence, and war"
(3/n)
Impacts of immigration:
"any model is gonna give you quite substantial global welfare gains from immigration."
"the optimality of immigration ... depends very much on what tax systems look like"
(4/n)
"any model is gonna give you quite substantial global welfare gains from immigration."
"the optimality of immigration ... depends very much on what tax systems look like"
(4/n)
Migrants vastly outearn similar workers at home:
"For the typical country, moving from home to, say, the US, you increase income and therefore reflected productivity by somewhere between three and seven times"
(5/n)
"For the typical country, moving from home to, say, the US, you increase income and therefore reflected productivity by somewhere between three and seven times"
(5/n)
"A substantional share of those income gains are shared with members at home"
"what we see is a bunch of places where remittances are between ten en twenty percent of GDP"
(6/n)
"what we see is a bunch of places where remittances are between ten en twenty percent of GDP"
(6/n)
"Migrant workers are more responsive to local [employment] shocks"
(7/n)
!["Migrant workers are more responsive to local [employment] shocks"(7/n)](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EdGq5OaXsAQNOtB.png "\"Migrant workers are more responsive to local [employment] shocks\"(7/n)")
(7/n)
"Immigration plays a very important role in the global innovation process"
"A lot of that innovation happens in the United States and immigration plays a central role in that"
(8/n)
"A lot of that innovation happens in the United States and immigration plays a central role in that"
(8/n)
Migration of inventors: "they overwhelmingly go to the United States"
(9/n)
(9/n)
How do all these inventors get to the US?
"Many of them get here by virtue of the education system"
(10/n)
"Many of them get here by virtue of the education system"
(10/n)
"Emigration allows individuals to escape violence"
(11/n)
(11/n)
Covid-19 threatens to undo these gains from international migration
end of thread, watch the full 10-minute video here:
(12/12)
end of thread, watch the full 10-minute video here:
(12/12)
