MSM misrepresentation

Seems like an improbable outcome.

"There is no reason to fear low-skilled migration."

Nobel prize-winning economist Esther Duflo says "the effect of low-skilled migration on low-skilled wages is zero". pic.twitter.com/VILxSCtBsO

— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) November 13, 2019

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I suspect that Esther Duflo is being misrepresented here by Channel4. The headline they are making is simply not true. That the effect of low-skilled migration on low-skilled wages is zero may or may not be empirically true. I have seen research over the decades for both positions and am not sure I have seen any meta-analysis that provides a clear guidance.

But potentially not having an impact on low-skilled wages is not the same as "There is no reason to fear low-skilled migration." Apparently, from the comments, she actually tackles some of the other societal costs later in the interview. But why bother to listen when the headline is so misleading as to be false.

Low-skilled migration has a very real impact on low-skilled native populations. It forces them onto public assistance or away from their birthplace to find better opportunity or into the black market.

The open-borders crowd is constituted of libertarians, big business interests, and social justice warriors. From a societal perspective, and especially if you are at the top of the societal pyramid, open-borders might be net beneficial but to say that it has no impact on native low-skilled workers is simply incorrect. It changes their patterns of work, their labor force participation rates, it changes social structures, it changes the physical environment, it changes local bonds and traditions, etc. It might be net beneficial for the totality and yet the native-born low-skilled workers can still end up much worse off.

You have to look at the whole package of impacts, not just the wage rate. Because labor practices are highly regulated and wage rates often regulated, they are sticky. As Milton Friedman used to note, the real minimum wage is zero. If it stays above zero when the supply of labor increases, it is because of regulation. And it means something else has changed. You have to measure what that change is, who is bearing the burden of the change and how their aggregate welfare has improved or declined.

To say that large-scale immigration has no impact is simply wrong. It depends on what you measure and where the benefits and costs accrue and to whom.