I confess I just skimmed this, but I recall that there have been quite a few papers on the impact of immigration on wages. The results has been mixed, with studies from the 90s suggesting mild downward pressure and more recent ones little discernible effect. (Correct me if I’m wrong; this is from pure memory.) This was a major question at one time, and if there is no longer any large scale research program related to this, I suspect it is because it no longer seems like promising ground for a strong finding.
More broadly, I suspect academics will always tilt left for organic reasons. I believe intellectually is correlated with receptivity to new ideas (right or wrong), and so is political liberalism.
Thanks, that makes sense. I think the bigger problem though is that economists has mostly focused on the wage question while ignoring other things voters and policymakers care about. The long-term fiscal effects of immigrants and their descendants are much less clear than the wage stuff, for instance, if you just look at “the literature.” Other social science disciplines are probably even worse in this regard.
I confess I just skimmed this, but I recall that there have been quite a few papers on the impact of immigration on wages. The results has been mixed, with studies from the 90s suggesting mild downward pressure and more recent ones little discernible effect. (Correct me if I’m wrong; this is from pure memory.) This was a major question at one time, and if there is no longer any large scale research program related to this, I suspect it is because it no longer seems like promising ground for a strong finding.
More broadly, I suspect academics will always tilt left for organic reasons. I believe intellectually is correlated with receptivity to new ideas (right or wrong), and so is political liberalism.
Thanks, that makes sense. I think the bigger problem though is that economists has mostly focused on the wage question while ignoring other things voters and policymakers care about. The long-term fiscal effects of immigrants and their descendants are much less clear than the wage stuff, for instance, if you just look at “the literature.” Other social science disciplines are probably even worse in this regard.