This post uses data from the World Bank to look at the effect of migration on countries around the world. I will begin by looking at all countries for which the World Bank has data, then drill down. So to begin, the data used in this post: 1. Net migration, by country available here. The […]

I write about issues I believe affect economic growth. For example, over the years, I have written a lot about taxes. And here’s a simple graph showing why: What we see is that tax rates at any given time seem to be related to the growth rate of real GDP per capita over the next […]

Tom Cotton, the junior United States Senator from Arkansas had a piece in the NY Times: President-elect Trump now has a clear mandate not only to stop illegal immigration, but also to finally cut the generation-long influx of low-skilled immigrants that undermines American workers. Yet many powerful industries benefit from such immigration. They’re arguing that […]

I have taken down this post because there was an error in the data.  Thanks to reader Mike B for spotting it.  My apologies to readers.  I am embarassed.

In my last post, I looked at the top ten immigrant groups by country of origin to the US, ranked by their per capita income in the US. In this post, I want to look at the bottom ten countries. Here’s some information on those countries (data sources mentioned at the bottom of the post): […]

I and many others, including Yves Smith, waded into the thicket of Mike Kimel’s provocative generic and specific-reasons-for-the-generic claims in his post here earlier this week titled “Negative Effects of Immigration on the Economy.”  I and others, including academic economist Barkley Rosser, commented in replies in the Comments thread to Mike’s post.  Yves did so on […]

August brings us the annual Irish immigration data, so it’s time to look at what has happened in their statistical reporting “year” that ended in April 2014. While better than last year, it’s still not pretty. According to the Central Statistics Office, net emigration continued in 2013-14, with net emigration of 21,400. a decline of […]

Stay with me here. Because I am almost serious about this proposal. Or at least it highlights the contradictions (while not Heightening the Contradictions). The Border Crisis: tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors crossing the U.S. border. Social Security ‘Crisis’: per ‘Reformers’ one that is driven by pure demography – too few future workers to […]

Think Progress offers a note of caution when we think we have reality nailed for government spending and results. And how ‘public displays’ by our politicians offer up little information: During the 2012 fiscal year, the federal government spent more on immigration enforcement — $18 billion — than on every other federal law enforcement agencies […]

Buce sends us to Der Spiegel’s description of Barack Obama’s potential 2012 opponents (“You Think This is Bad?”) John Kay in today’s FT (no link) tells us why letting economists pontificate about finance is a Mug’s Game. The mugging being of people who are stupid enough to believe economists. (If Brad DeLong or Mark Thoma […]