As a first approximation if there is a highly mutually beneficial transaction to be made (and skilled immigration is surely that) I say remove the obstacle that is preventing it.
Is it possible that if our education system were more effective, there would be no market for immigrants. Maybe. But in the meantime, let's allow those mutua…
As a first approximation if there is a highly mutually beneficial transaction to be made (and skilled immigration is surely that) I say remove the obstacle that is preventing it.
Is it possible that if our education system were more effective, there would be no market for immigrants. Maybe. But in the meantime, let's allow those mutually beneficial transactions.
Would allowing more skilled immigration harm the countries from which the immigrants come? Possibly, although much of the investment in producing the human capital that the immigrant brings is self investment and the possibility of immigration would be an incentive for more people to self invest. Plus as a matter of fact immigrants often remit part of the income from their vastly improved productivity. Plus the emigration could provide some incentive to polity reforms that would reduce the difference in wages between the source and destination countries. Compared to the harm done to others by our wars on drugs and terror and CO2 emissions, skill scarfing seems pretty minimal.
‘Would allowing more skilled immigration harm the countries from which the immigrants come?’
Yes!
That Country has invested its limited $$$ educating someone for the USA to take the return on the investment. It’s a Human resource that they have paid for which they cannot use to develop their economy…. it’s made them poorer.
Those poor Countries have considerably fewer trained skilled people than the US - why not export the US’s skilled to them if it’s a mutually beneficial transaction?
I'm fine with more immigration whichever way it goes. I think most countries, rich and poor, would benefit by allowing greater immigration. And if our allowing greater immigration is shown to be harmful to country X then we could use part of the income generated by allowing the immigration as a transfer to the affected country. I just doubt the harm will be great enough to generate much in compensation. But as a political matter, if paying "compensation" to the source countries needs to be part of the deal to allow the immigration, that's fine with me. Do you think concern with the harm to the source country is an important part of the reason we do not allow more immigration? Personally, I do not.
As a first approximation if there is a highly mutually beneficial transaction to be made (and skilled immigration is surely that) I say remove the obstacle that is preventing it.
Is it possible that if our education system were more effective, there would be no market for immigrants. Maybe. But in the meantime, let's allow those mutually beneficial transactions.
Would allowing more skilled immigration harm the countries from which the immigrants come? Possibly, although much of the investment in producing the human capital that the immigrant brings is self investment and the possibility of immigration would be an incentive for more people to self invest. Plus as a matter of fact immigrants often remit part of the income from their vastly improved productivity. Plus the emigration could provide some incentive to polity reforms that would reduce the difference in wages between the source and destination countries. Compared to the harm done to others by our wars on drugs and terror and CO2 emissions, skill scarfing seems pretty minimal.
‘Would allowing more skilled immigration harm the countries from which the immigrants come?’
Yes!
That Country has invested its limited $$$ educating someone for the USA to take the return on the investment. It’s a Human resource that they have paid for which they cannot use to develop their economy…. it’s made them poorer.
Those poor Countries have considerably fewer trained skilled people than the US - why not export the US’s skilled to them if it’s a mutually beneficial transaction?
I'm fine with more immigration whichever way it goes. I think most countries, rich and poor, would benefit by allowing greater immigration. And if our allowing greater immigration is shown to be harmful to country X then we could use part of the income generated by allowing the immigration as a transfer to the affected country. I just doubt the harm will be great enough to generate much in compensation. But as a political matter, if paying "compensation" to the source countries needs to be part of the deal to allow the immigration, that's fine with me. Do you think concern with the harm to the source country is an important part of the reason we do not allow more immigration? Personally, I do not.