Policy Ideas: A study of Immigration's Impacts on Global Economies

This paper looks at the effects immigration can have on a nation’s economy. The motivation for conducting this was to give policymakers in the United States, who have been grappling with immigration reform for a good chunk of time, some insights into the economic benefits that immigrants pose. This could then maybe inform their decision-making in this policy realm. The paper begins with a theoretical, economic model that finds that no immigration was the best for the United States; this did not seem reasonable. The model was subsequently updated and found that the borders of the United States should be open to anybody and everybody. This also did not seem like a plausible solution. Because of the two extremes, an empirical analysis was then conducted to help answer the question of what level of immigration would be helpful. This empirical analysis of nations around the globe did not discover anything new; rather, it confirmed prior analyses run by other scholars, which found that immigration has little impact on an economy. This did not lead to the conclusion that immigration is bad, though. Instead, it was determined that other measurements or determinations should be used when considering the levels of immigration a country should allow for within its sovereign borders, such as qualitative factors, in addition to the necessary quantitative factors.