by Bruce Webb Barkley Rosser and I among others have long claimed that Social Security’s economic models are too pessimistic in light of performance both over the whole post-war period and particularly over the last dozen years. And the numbers looking back are pretty clear, Social Security income/cost ratios have come in better than Intermediate […]

Lawrence Kudlow makes a good case that we should not close the borders. He hopes – as do I – that Mexico can foster its own economic development. After all, the CIA’s World Factbook reports Mexico’s per capita GDP at only $10,000. But he loses me with the following: When Fox took Mexico’s helm six […]

Well, I could have saved myself and all of you a lot of time and energy if I had just started off the week linking to Max Sawicky on the topic of immigration. The post would have been entitled “Immigration: Just See Max.” In one concise post, he made all of the points on immigration […]

The issue of immigration has been well-documented as exposing a rift among Republicans in recent days; articles in the Washington Post, The Economist, and the Financial Times are but a few examples. But the political left seems to me to be nearly as split on the issue. Numerous readers of this blog have expressed serious […]

Some of you have wondered why I haven’t yet made much of an effort to distinguish between legal and illegal immigration. It’s a fair question. Let me share my thoughts with you about the two, and explain why my sentiments about immigration in general mean that I don’t worry much about the distinction between the […]

Simpsons aficionados among you already know that the Simpsons addressed the issue of immigration back in 1996, in the episode “Much Apu About Nothing”. Here’s a summary of the beginning of the episode, thanks to Wikipedia (Btw, I never would have guessed that Wikipedia contains entries on individual Simpsons episodes…) On an ordinary day, a […]

A propos of recent discussions regarding immigration, I thought it worthwhile reposting the link to a relevant paper that I quite like: Gianmarco Ottaviano and Giovanni Peri, “The Economic Value of Cultural Diversity: Evidence from US Cities.” What are the economic consequences to U.S. natives of the growing diversity of American cities? Is their productivity […]