My very positive 2019 in Review Bryan Caplan’s book Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of ImmigrationI wrote:
I’m one of the few who would accuse Kaplan of underestimating the benefits of immigration. Twice as many as native-born AmericansSo among the primary beneficiaries of these immigrant workers are American workers. But nowhere in his book does he mention that fact. Of course, he could be exaggerating the benefits to Native Americans. Consider a dry cleaner in Korea that employs mostly families. Yet it’s likely that most of these employers also hire family and non-immigrant workers.
In the end, it turned out that I too had underestimated the importance of immigration. Here’s why: Interview This book was written by my colleague at Hoover, the economist Stephen Davis, and he interviewed Rebecca Diamond, a professor of economics at Stanford University. Here’s the gist of it:
Immigrants directly account for one-quarter of the economic value created by U.S. patents. When considering the collaborative benefits that immigrant inventors bring to Native American inventors, immigrants account for more than one-third of that value. Immigrant inventors also play a critical role in the two-way flow of scientific and technological knowledge between the United States and other countries. Blocking the flow of immigrant inventors would hinder U.S. innovation enterprise and slow the development and dissemination of scientific knowledge.
Now, you might say, “But if the U.S. government hadn’t let so many of those people in, they would have patented elsewhere, and we would still have gotten the benefits.” (According to Nobel Prize-winning economist William D. Nordhaus, 97.8% of the benefits of innovation go to consumersnot innovators.
The answer is no. Some of them may have patented elsewhere. But some of them may not have done so. Despite imperfections and government barriers, America remains one of the most dynamic economies in the world. Potential inventors here have nearby peers to work with. Think Silicon Valley. So if the government had prevented a significant number of them from immigrating, a significant amount of innovation would have been prevented, and American consumers, like other consumers, would have been deprived of the benefits of innovation.
This is link For basic research.
