The immigration curve

What is the distribution of the impact of immigration? I ask because there's tendency to discuss immigration only in terms of average effects - the average being slightly positive (pdf) (in economic terms) if you're (pdf) in the reality-based community and negative if you're not.

This discourse, however, misses something - that there's a distribution around any average. Consider each particular immigrant. His effect on British society might be heavily negative (if he's a serious criminal), slightly positive (if he's a typical worker), or hugely positive - if he's a brilliant entrepreneur, scientist or sportsman.

We should, therefore, think of an "immigration curve", with a few serious criminals at one extreme, a mass of ordinary folk around the middle and a few great benefactors at the other. (I stress that I'm not thinking in narrow economic terms here - the benefits and losses are cultural as well.)

But here's the thing. There's no reason to suppose that this curve is bell-shaped.Quite the opposite. It's more likely to be positively skewed. There's a limit to the amount of cultural and economic damage an immigrant criminal can do - unless he gets to run a bank or football club. But the upside gains from a great migrant are potentially vast. The gains we make from getting an Andre Geim, Elias Canetti*, Ola Jordan, Wojciech Szczesny**, Friedrich Hayek, Michael Marks or Mo Farah - to name but a handful - offset a lot of petty criminals.

Thinking of an "immigration curve" helps explain why attitudes to migration differ:

 - The more you believe a few great people can tranform society, the more you should favour free migration, as it raises our odds of attracting such people. Randians who believe in heroic entrepreneurs, or economists who think that socio-technical change is increasing the significance of superstars should therefore favour open borders - because that right tail of big contributors is a fat one.

- Hayekians, who doubt that governments have the knowhow to exclude "bad" immigrants and admit "good" ones, will favour more open borders.

 - People of a conservative disposition - Oakeshottians (pdf) whose instinct is to regard change as deprivation - will oppose immigration, as they put less weight upon the small chance of a large upside, and worry more about the larger chance of loss.

 - People who are more open to new experiences will favour migration, as they put more weight than conservatives upon the potential upside. It could be that liberals favour freer migration because liberal political views are correlated (pdf) with psychological openness.

 - People who are in a position to reap the cultural rewards that a tiny minority of migrants bring will be more supportive of open borders than those who aren't. If you appreciate the work of Peter Medawar or V.S. Naipaul you're more likely to be pro-immigration than you are if your experience is confined to hearing disconcerting languages on the bus.

Herein, though, lies a problem. We know from behavioural finance that our thinking about probability distributions is clouded by numerous cognitive biases. It could be, therefore, that we all misperceive the shape of the immigration curve - including me.  

* Is it just me, or is Auto da Fe one of the best novels ever written?

** You might object that Szczesny is a source of disutility for Sp*rs fans. But when Jeremy Bentham said that in measuring utility everybody should count for one and nobody for more than one, he didn't have Sp*rs fans in mind.

Comments

[MyLittlePony]

I've heard a very similar argument made about why we should continue having large families - some great inventors, composers etc. were 5th, 6th. 7th etc. children and if their parents had stopped at 1 or 2, they'd never have existed. I hope you're working on having as many children as you can, Chris, in case failure to have the maximum number possible is depriving the world of someone great.

[Ralph Musgrave]

I don’t agree with Chris’s claim that “a few great people can tranform society” whereas there is a “limit to the amount of cultural and economic damage an immigrant criminal can do”. The cultural damage done by Muslims who threaten to kill authors and cartoonists they don’t like does a huge amount of cultural damage. I seem to remember Hitler burned books.

As for V.S.Naipaul, he once said, “What do they call it - multi culti - its all absurd."

As for the “cultural rewards that a tiny minority of migrants bring”, culture, amazing as might seem, travels independently of people. When Bach and Mozart first composed their stuff, it was all round Europe in no time on some amazing stuff called “paper”.

[BenSix]

Interesting post. I'm not sure you appreciate the "culture" argument. At least some of the people of a conservative disposition would not deny that most migrants are good and hard-working people, but would maintain that the cumulative effects of different preferences, ideologies and allegiances will provoke great and quite possibly lamentable social change. It is not simply about behaviour that is obviously bad. (Though, of course, it is partly about that.)

Also, I agree that admirers of Among the Believers might have different opinions!

[Luke]

I'm trying to work this out, so sorry if it's bollocks. Could different people rationally, maybe wrongly, think that immigration has a negative effect on them, even if it benefits us all on average.

I'm thinking of the Jimmy Carr(?) line - "if an immigrant with no money or connections and poor English takes your job, maybe you're a bit shit?" OK, but what if I am a bit shit? 49% of the population are (unlike in Lake Woebegone).

[Dave Timoney]

"There's a limit to the amount of cultural and economic damage an immigrant criminal can do". Mark Carney is Canadian. Just saying.

[Metatone]

It's amusing how I read the first few lines and I thought - at last, Chris has woken up to the misuse of averages in the immigration debate.

Alas, it was not to be.

The key issue in persuading people about immigration is admitting (which economists seem constitutionally incapable of doing) that immigration can hurt some indigenous people, at least in the short run. And given the crap state of redistribution, in the long run too.

[johnb78]

Luke: Louis CK

Metatone: immigration has certainly hurt indigenous people in the US, Canada and Australia. But since the term has no meaning in a UK context, I'm not sure why you're dragging it into this discussion.

[rogerh]

I think the world is becoming more homogenous economically speaking and as it does so there are likely to be fewer mass migrations - fewer 'huddled masses' and most likely the top 20% of a potential immigrant group will be able to make a decent-ish living at home or nearby, leaving the remaining 80% as potential migrants. I accept your argument but think the beneficial effect is likely to be weaker than it once was. Nevertheless I look forward to new restaurants, theatres, competent plumbers etc.

Back in the 19thC hardworking unskilled were a valuable resource - their efforts could be leveraged into economic growth. But now industry is not so desperate and cannot enjoy unfettered growth. But what will happen to say a Romanian physicist coming here in 2014? Most likely an upscale lab tech job and not a professorship in a uni, skilled immigrants tend to slip back a notch or two, but plumbers are welcome with no slip-back. So as you suggest the economic effect is only slightly positive and probably not from those skilled who want to come here.

Of course there is always the possibility that a genius would turn up, on his/her way to the USA or India etc.

[Dave Timoney]

@rogerh, "I think the world is becoming more homogenous economically speaking and as it does so there are likely to be fewer mass migrations". Au contraire.

Greater homogeneity makes economic migration easier (e.g. the increase in the global population that speaks English), as does cheaper travel and rising living standards in emigrant countries (it is the better off who mainly move, as they can afford the cost of migration, not the poor).

Debates about migration tend to have a narrow focus because we usually think about it from a country perspective (i.e. immigration to the UK). This means we tend to ignore the growing level of migration globally (e.g. intra-regional migration in the global south), and intra-country migration (e.g. the movement of rural Chinese to the cities).

The 21st century is likely to put the 19th and 20th in the shade in terms of migration.

[Luke]

Johnb78
"But since the term [indigenes] has no meaning in a UK context...."

I think that's overstating the case, BUT you're right that I missed the point of the post, and dragged in something irrelevant.

[Socialism in One Bedroom]

"The cultural damage done by Muslims who threaten to kill authors and cartoonists they don’t like does a huge amount of cultural damage."

One man's cultural damage is another's cultural advancement.

Ralph focuses on Muslims because they are the far rights zeitgeist. You can't really produce cartoons about Jews anymore or blacks, as they did in the old days. Culturally this became unacceptable. Muslims can be attacked, and this is done is the name of freedom of expression. But we lost nothing stamping out racist filth in the past and will lose nothing going forward.

The biggest cultural shift in recent decades has been what is popularly called 'Political Correctness'. No more Golly wogs etc. Did we lose or did we gain from this?

Let the viewer decide.

Incidentally it isn't just Muslims you know who get defensive, it just appears like that because racism against Muslims is still tolerated. We have recently had the Dieudonné controversy, which shows other oppressed groups just have more established rights. The fight to give Muslims those same rights goes on.