Headlines should accurately reflect the facts

I posted a number of excerpts from Science Fictions by Stuart Ritchie in which he highlights both bad scientific practice compounded by bad media practice.

Here's an example from Marginal Revolution.  The headline is:

Migrants to the U.S. are much more productive than migrants to other locales.

That seems innocuous enough.   The US, as with most Anglophone countries is very open and tolerant of migrants and therefore you would expect greater productivity from them in the US.  Given the size and strength of the American economy compared to most other Anglophone countries, it is even less surprising that migrants would be even more productive than to other locales.

But click through - is that headline reflective of the research actually performed?

The actual research is quite distinct from the MR headline.  The papers is Why U.S. Immigration Barriers Matter for the Global Advancement of Science by Ruchir Agarwal, Ina Ganguli, Patrick Gaule, and Geoff Smith.  That paper title is much, much more focused than the MR headline.  From the Abstract.

This paper studies the impact of U.S. immigration barriers on global knowledge production. We present four key findings. First, among Nobel Prize winners and Fields Medalists, migrants to the U.S. play a central role in the global knowledge network— representing 20-33% of the frontier knowledge producers. Second, using novel survey data and hand-curated life-histories of International Math Olympiad (IMO) medalists, we show that migrants to the U.S. are up to six times more productive than migrants to other countries—even after accounting for talent during one's teenage years. Third, financing costs are a key factor preventing foreign talent from migrating abroad to pursue their dream careers, particularly talent from developing countries. Fourth, certain 'push' incentives that reduce immigration barriers – by addressing financing constraints for top foreign talent – could increase the global scientific output of future cohorts by 42% percent. We conclude by discussing policy options for the U.S. and the global scientific community.

Several things to note, all assumptions.

This reads as motivated advocacy research - they are making the claim that top performing (Nobel and Fields Medalists) immigrants in the US are an outsized portion of 20-33% of frontier knowledge producers.  Happy to stipulate that but we should also be told what percentage all American Nobel Prize and Fields Medallists there are (regardless of immigrant status).  With only 4.25% of the global population, we are 16% of global economic productivity.  

In the very specialized arena of top mathematicians, those that are migrants to the US are 6 times more productive than those to other countries.  But how are we measuring productivity and are we comparing apples to oranges? If the US if garnering the highest IQ mathematicians, then productivity difference may have more to do with IQ differences than country differences.

The last two findings are that there are cost barriers to attracting the best global talent.  The natural implication being that perhaps the US ought to make it easier for good talent to come here through subsidies or other mechanisms.

Such a policy might be warranted on various grounds, but at that point we are not dealing with research.  We are dealing with politics and policies.  Avocacy motivated research is not necessarily wrong but it is suspect.

And just look how wide a gulf there is between the MR claim that "Migrants to the U.S. are much more productive than migrants to other locales" and the reality of the research.

"Migrants to the U.S. are much more productive than migrants to other locales" is barely related to "American immigration standards are so tight that we get the very best maths and sciences immigrants and they are disproportionately productive compared to lower performing immigrants to other countries."

Its broad wording also makes it barely related to reality.  It might be true that migrants (legal and illegal) are more productive than migrants to other countries, but that is a much, much broader issue than the very narrowly defined population of Nobel winners and Fields medallists.  

Is the paper wrong?  Who knows, that is for other studies to confirm or refute.  But is the MR headline reflective of the content and nature (advocacy) of the research?  Hardly at all.