My colleague Alex Tabarrok, over at Marginal Revolution, neatly and importanly exposes many of the flaws in a surprisingly flaw-filled op-ed by Barry Chiswick that appeared in Sunday’s New York Times. In this op-ed, Chiswick seems to want to argue that restricting immigration will have no effect on the output of the American economy — but he fails rather spectacularly.
Tabarrok on Chiswick
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That is a pretty poor excuse for an editorial. Chiswick more or less uses a few anecdotes and then goes on making assumptions about zero-cost substitutions to try and justify the idea that wages would not increase in the absence of illegal immigrants. Mind you, there *are* estimates that show zero wage impact, based I guess on the parallel impact of demand reduction, and Tabarrok mentions these in passing. So it's not so much Chiswick's conclusion that is bizarre, it's his poor argumentation.
Now, I oppose mass immigration of low-skilled workers in part because I believe it reduces the wages of native low-skilled workers, so I'm not even sure what side of the debate Chiswick is on. Both sides might theoretically cite him, depending on their fundamental priorities; but given his feeble editorializing it makes more sense to try to put him in the other camp as an easy target…
The next day Chiswick wrote an article about why voter fraud, i.e. illegal voting, is bad. Tabarrok countered by telling all about the benefits of voting and why participating in democracy is a civic duty. Then Chiswick wrote about why counterfeiting is bad. Tabarrok countered about the benefits of an expanding money supply on the economy. Then Chiswick wrote about the negative impact of check kiting. Tabarrok countered with about the benefits of financial intermediation.