[extropy-chat] Economic consensus on immigration

[Hal Finney]

The Marginal Revolution blog has a posting today offering an open letter
which aims (or at least claims) to express the economic consensus on
the impact of immigration.  I don't think immigration is a particularly
extropian subject but I offer this as a case study in methodologies for
coming to an understanding of complex issues.

http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2006/05/open_letter_on_.html

I have argued in the past that we should generally respect the scientific
consensus, when it exists, for several reasons: because the people
involved have put so much more time and effort into studying the issues
than we can afford to; because science has methodologies to catch and
correct errors, which we as individuals generally do not(!); and most
importantly, because science has a track record of success in terms of
coming to greater understanding of the world.

Immigration is a complicated issue and I'm sure we all have a variety
of opinions on the subject.  The economic impact is not the only thing
to consider but it is certainly relevant and important.  I see attempts
like these economists' letter to be tremendously valuable in terms of
passing on accurate information to the public about what the consensus
is on hot-button issues.

An important question is always whether the consensus is being accurately
expressed, or whether this an effort by a small group to manipulate
public opinion.  The global warming issue suffered controversy along
those lines for a number of years, with many letters and counter-letters
being circulated opposing or supporting the official consensus.  I think
this has died down now and there is general recognition that the claimed
consensus was right all along, both in terms of being a true and accurate
characterization of what beliefs were held among working climatologists,
and also of being a good approximation to the reality of climate change.
Skeptic Michael Shermer writes in the June issue of Scientific American
that he is now abandoning his skepticism on the issue and will henceforth
work to mitigate global warming.

In the case of this immigration letter, they claim to have support
from economists on the left and the right.  I recognize the name of
Brad DeLong, Berkeley economist who is definitely on the left - his
name was being floated as part of the potential Kerry administration.
Another person they mention is Vernon Smith, whose Nobel prize was for
"having established laboratory experiments as a tool in empirical economic
analysis, especially in the study of alternative market mechanisms",
which makes him sound generally right-wing, working on market mechanisms
like that.  It will be interesting to see whether they are successful
in attracting a broad range of support.

The content of the letter itself is not too dramatic or controversial,
I think.  It basically says that immigration has had a modestly positive
net economic impact; the negatives are pretty small, and the positives
are somewhat larger.  I was glad to see that it did mention the most obvious
positive impact of immigration, something which is often overlooked:

> We must not forget that the gains to immigrants from coming to the United
> States are immense. Immigration is the greatest anti-poverty program ever
> devised. The American dream is a reality for many immigrants who not
> only increase their own living standards but who also send billions of
> dollars of their money back to their families in their home countries - a
> form of truly effective foreign aid.

Indeed, immigration is tremendously valuable to the immigrants themselves,
as is obvious from the great risks and costs they undergo to come here.
Even if it turned out that immigration was slightly negative on balance
for existing Americans (which is not the case), we might still support
immigration if we judged the enormous benefits accruing to immigrants
to outweigh the slight costs paid by citizens of the United States.

Hal