The Skill Composition of Immigrants and the Generosity of the Welfare State

NBER ^ | November 3, 2008 | Alon Cohen and Assaf Razin

[reaganaut1]

The paper analyzes the effect of the generosity of the welfare state on the skill composition of immigrants. We develop a parsimonious model in which the effect of an increase in the generosity (and taxes) of the welfare state on the skill composition of immigrants under free migration is negative. The reason is that welfare state benefits attract unskilled migrants because they contribute to tax revenues less than what they gain from benefits; and this generosity works to deter skilled immigrants, because they contribute in taxes more than in benefits.

[reaganaut1]

In plain English, they are saying that a generous welfare state attracts people who will consume more than they produce, at the taxpayer's expense. I know they are stating the obvious, but this is better than using jargon to mask conclusions that are FALSE, which is what academics in the "social sciences" often do.

The full paper is at http://www.tau.ac.il/~razin/cohenrazinaugust2008.pdf .

In how many states can it be said that the votes of naturalized citizens, especially Hispanics, made the difference for Obama?

[Jack Hammer]

They’re only immigrants until January 20th. After that, they’ll ALL be citizens. And vote Democrat.

[Teacher317]

What stunned me was that Asians also went for Obama 65-35. I figured they were the educated and hard-working minority, not looking for a handout.