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Agreed. My big problem with the H1B isn't that increases immigration, but that it does this in a very narrow way that distorts markets. For instance, suppose t

by geebee 10y ago

Agreed. My big problem with the H1B isn't that increases immigration, but that it does this in a very narrow way that distorts markets. For instance, suppose that land can be used to grow either lemons or avocados. Avocados suddenly become very popular and fetch a high price. Land that was formerly used to grow lemons is now used to grow avocados. So the price of a lemon now reflects the opportunity cost of not growing an avocado. Because people can no longer get lemons at the price they used to pay, or at a 50% markup, they claim there is a "shortage" of lemons. They create an immigration system where someone is allowed to come into the US and farm land - on the condition that they grow lemons. The immigrant is not allowed to grow avocados, nor is the immigrant allowed to do something other than farming. You're here to grow lemons buddy, because there's a shortage of lemons. Ok, fine, grow lemons for 7 years, and we'll give you freedom, but only after you've made a massive investment in setting up a lemon operation and costs of changing would be high. What this does is ensure that absolutely nobody with the freedom to decide what to grow will ever grow lemons. It will also ensure that the price of lemons will never reflect the opportunity cost, so the market signals that would bring prices back into equilibrium, encouraging people who can choose to grow avocados instead will now be suppressed. This is why a lot of people have no problem with immigration, but are opposed to "employer sponsored" (corporate controlled) immigration designed to fill specific shortages. What these programs end up doing is creating market distortions that make long term problems even worse, all while limiting personal freedom. It's not that hard to solve, just say that immigrants are free to study what they wish and work in what fields they wish. Employers don't get a say in this. If they aren't offering pay and work conditions strong enough to draw immigrants into programming, any more than for people born here, fine. I see absolutely no reason let corporations tell immigrants they have to be programmers rather than real estate agents, lawyers, nurses, drywall installers, or sandwich shop owners, just so employers can get to hire programmers at salaries that aren't good enough to draw people with freedom into the field.

xaa 10y ago
Very interesting argument. While the "serfdom" aspect of this is definitely morally repugnant, the most optimistic interpretation I can see for the H1B program is that it is supposedly a way to encourage or select for immigrants with high economic value. It absolutely does distort the market, but if we are under a political constraint that we can only have X immigrants per year, it does make sense to take the ones that will be working in high-wage sectors, if we are out to maximize GDP. > It will also ensure that the price of lemons will never reflect the opportunity cost, so the market signals that would bring prices back into equilibrium Hm, I'm not sure. It seems like restricted immigration would basically move the supply curve for lemons to the right by decreasing cost of wages for lemons (only). Then because avocados are competing for the same land, avocado supply curve will move left. The result will be more lemons at a lower price and less avocados at a higher price, but they will both still be in "equilibrium". In either case, the rate of return per unit land should be equal for both avocados and lemons, yes? It seems the main effect of interest to us would be that wages for avocado-growing employees would be higher and lemon-growing employees lower under a restricted immigration policy vs an unlimited one. So, back to reality, I have never thought about the fact that H1Bs are actually good for everyone else's wages (outside the affected sectors) compared to unrestricted immigration. If we concerned about "fairness", we could note that it might therefore also be more morally sound to restrict immigration to high-wage jobs because it would actually compress wage inequality and the low-wage natives would benefit. The losers in this scenario are high-skill natives and low-skill foreigners.
- geebee 10y ago
  Yes, your last point is astute. Sandwich shop owners, for instance, benefit from the presence of more people here to buy sandwiches but who are prohibited by visa restrictions from entering the sandwich shop business. In theory, we all benefit from more immigration. Yes, some of the immigrants will compete directly with us for jobs and customers, but others will provide us with services and be clients and customers. Again, in theory, the increased economies of scale leave everyone better off. The thing is, job-specific immigration restrictions don't allow the market to work properly. If immigration forces people to be programmers, then homegrown programmers will be disproportionally affected by immigration. Sorry for no cite, but I did read a study suggesting that programmers are one of the few educated groups in the US whose wages may have diminished because of immigration. I don't think this would have happened had immigration been "free", because immigrants would be able to respond to market signals and spread into the general workforce in the way I described above. So I don't "blame" immigration per se, I blame the highly coercive nature of the program. As to high vs low skill... yes, this would impact high skill workers more, but I think the distortions would would be manageable as long as we kept the definition of "high skill" very general. I think the H1B visa is too narrowly defined, and too dominated by high tech, to qualify as the more general "high skill" approach that would avoid these kinds of market distortions. [1] I find some merit to this, but I do believe there are costs associated with very high levels of immigration that are often left out of this kind of analysis.
  - xaa 10y ago
    > ...leave everyone better off. Oh, my. If you had said "average GDP per capita" or "total real GDP" or even "many people" better off, OK. Free immigration is very much like free trade: it makes the system as a whole more efficient, but there definitely are winners and losers in the process. In the limiting case of 1 immigrant, employees in that immigrant's field lose (slightly), and everyone else wins, including that immigrant's employer. So, in my view, these things should be controlled in such a way to try to make sure the winners aren't people already winning and vice-versa. But not to the point of cutting off our nose to spite our face; there is this tradeoff between equity and efficiency. > If immigration forces people to be programmers, then homegrown programmers will be disproportionally affected by immigration...I don't think this would have happened had immigration been "free" Well, I agree, and this is pretty close to a tautology. As the "high-skill natives" in an H1B field, we're the primary losers from the policy, whereas most people benefit. I'm coming at this from the assumption that there is some number of immigrants per year, X, that society is willing to tolerate. Would we prefer X Albert Einsteins or X random people? You are arguing that the former would cause a market distortion; maybe true, but still preferable, I'd say. And I think that it doesn't really matter whether immigrants are enslaved to a particular company, or whether they're simply selected for a particular set of skills. If you allow only programmer immigrants, most of them will program, whether or not they're required to, because their alternative is unskilled labor. > I think the H1B visa is too narrowly defined I agree, but that's the power of lobbying for you. Actually I'm not in programming per se, but science (with computing aspects). Tons of H1Bs here for science as well. It would make more sense if it were defined by salary rather than field, although may be hard to implement.

by geebee 10y ago

xaa 10y ago

Very interesting argument. While the "serfdom" aspect of this is definitely morally repugnant, the most optimistic interpretation I can see for the H1B program is that it is supposedly a way to encourage or select for immigrants with high economic value. It absolutely does distort the market, but if we are under a political constraint that we can only have X immigrants per year, it does make sense to take the ones that will be working in high-wage sectors, if we are out to maximize GDP. > It will also ensure that the price of lemons will never reflect the opportunity cost, so the market signals that would bring prices back into equilibrium Hm, I'm not sure. It seems like restricted immigration would basically move the supply curve for lemons to the right by decreasing cost of wages for lemons (only). Then because avocados are competing for the same land, avocado supply curve will move left. The result will be more lemons at a lower price and less avocados at a higher price, but they will both still be in "equilibrium". In either case, the rate of return per unit land should be equal for both avocados and lemons, yes? It seems the main effect of interest to us would be that wages for avocado-growing employees would be higher and lemon-growing employees lower under a restricted immigration policy vs an unlimited one. So, back to reality, I have never thought about the fact that H1Bs are actually good for everyone else's wages (outside the affected sectors) compared to unrestricted immigration. If we concerned about "fairness", we could note that it might therefore also be more morally sound to restrict immigration to high-wage jobs because it would actually compress wage inequality and the low-wage natives would benefit. The losers in this scenario are high-skill natives and low-skill foreigners.

geebee 10y ago
Yes, your last point is astute. Sandwich shop owners, for instance, benefit from the presence of more people here to buy sandwiches but who are prohibited by visa restrictions from entering the sandwich shop business. In theory, we all benefit from more immigration. Yes, some of the immigrants will compete directly with us for jobs and customers, but others will provide us with services and be clients and customers. Again, in theory, the increased economies of scale leave everyone better off. The thing is, job-specific immigration restrictions don't allow the market to work properly. If immigration forces people to be programmers, then homegrown programmers will be disproportionally affected by immigration. Sorry for no cite, but I did read a study suggesting that programmers are one of the few educated groups in the US whose wages may have diminished because of immigration. I don't think this would have happened had immigration been "free", because immigrants would be able to respond to market signals and spread into the general workforce in the way I described above. So I don't "blame" immigration per se, I blame the highly coercive nature of the program. As to high vs low skill... yes, this would impact high skill workers more, but I think the distortions would would be manageable as long as we kept the definition of "high skill" very general. I think the H1B visa is too narrowly defined, and too dominated by high tech, to qualify as the more general "high skill" approach that would avoid these kinds of market distortions. [1] I find some merit to this, but I do believe there are costs associated with very high levels of immigration that are often left out of this kind of analysis.
- xaa 10y ago
  > ...leave everyone better off. Oh, my. If you had said "average GDP per capita" or "total real GDP" or even "many people" better off, OK. Free immigration is very much like free trade: it makes the system as a whole more efficient, but there definitely are winners and losers in the process. In the limiting case of 1 immigrant, employees in that immigrant's field lose (slightly), and everyone else wins, including that immigrant's employer. So, in my view, these things should be controlled in such a way to try to make sure the winners aren't people already winning and vice-versa. But not to the point of cutting off our nose to spite our face; there is this tradeoff between equity and efficiency. > If immigration forces people to be programmers, then homegrown programmers will be disproportionally affected by immigration...I don't think this would have happened had immigration been "free" Well, I agree, and this is pretty close to a tautology. As the "high-skill natives" in an H1B field, we're the primary losers from the policy, whereas most people benefit. I'm coming at this from the assumption that there is some number of immigrants per year, X, that society is willing to tolerate. Would we prefer X Albert Einsteins or X random people? You are arguing that the former would cause a market distortion; maybe true, but still preferable, I'd say. And I think that it doesn't really matter whether immigrants are enslaved to a particular company, or whether they're simply selected for a particular set of skills. If you allow only programmer immigrants, most of them will program, whether or not they're required to, because their alternative is unskilled labor. > I think the H1B visa is too narrowly defined I agree, but that's the power of lobbying for you. Actually I'm not in programming per se, but science (with computing aspects). Tons of H1Bs here for science as well. It would make more sense if it were defined by salary rather than field, although may be hard to implement.