When thinking about immigration, remember the migrants.

So says economist Tim Harford. The whole post is worth reading, but the take-away point is:

A recent survey by the economist Michael Clemens, of the Center for Global Development, points out that although the question is largely ignored, any reasonable estimate of the economic gains from freer migration would dwarf that of the gains from, say, freer trade – if we include the welfare of the migrants themselves.

This paper by Clemens argues that by placing "tightly binding constraints on emigration from poor countries," we're walking by "trillion-dollar bills on the sidewalk." He sums up the paper in this article in the Guardian, saying:

The reason migration packs such economic punch is both simple and mysterious: a worker's economic productivity depends much more on location than skill. A taxi driver in Ethiopia's capital, no matter how talented and industrious, cannot earn more than a few thousand dollars a year. The same person doing the same job in New York City can easily earn $35,000 a year. The reason people will pay him that much is that his driving adds more than $35,000 of value to the New York economy, more value than his actions can add to the Ethiopian economy.

The Political Compass ideology quiz

You can take the quiz here to find out where they place you on economic and social issues.

Based on my scores, I seem to be a moderate libertarian.

Libertarianism is often seen as an extreme ideology, so is "moderate libertarian" an oxymoron? Not according to Tyler Cowen. Writing in 2007, he said that libertarian policies have increased America's economic growth, but added:

The more wealth we have, the more government we can afford. Furthermore, the better government operates, the more government people will demand. That is the fundamental paradox of libertarianism. Many initial victories bring later defeats.

I am not so worried about this paradox of libertarianism. Overall libertarians should embrace these developments. We should embrace a world with growing wealth, growing positive liberty, and yes, growing government. We don’t have to favor the growth in government per se, but we do need to recognize that sometimes it is a package deal.

In short, libertarianism has the seeds of its own destruction.

As with all these kinds of quizzes, I take issue with the premise of some of the questions. The first one is whether you agree with this statement:

If economic globalisation is inevitable, it should primarily serve humanity rather than the interests of trans-national corporations.

This seems designed to prompt you to think in zero-sum terms about benefitting either "trans-national corporations" or "humanity." I wish there had been an option that would have allowed me to take the position that globalization should benefit both trans-national corporations and humanity at the same time. But the quiz nudges you toward answering that "humanity" should take precedence over "corporations." (The quiz writers should read the section in chapter 1 of Thomas Sowell's Economic Facts and Fallacies about the "zero-sum fallacy" and the chapter on free trade in Tim Harford's The Undercover Economist.)

Also, the quiz results are supposedly about your political views, but several of the social questions don't refer to any role of government. For instance, you could believe that discipline is the most important value to instill in children, and that society has gone too far in allowing people to express sexuality in public (which the quiz would count as "authoritarian" positions), while taking a libertarian position that government should stay out of these issues. You can have a moral objection to the painted nude woman in Times Square the other day without thinking the police should have arrested her. The quiz is supposed to test whether you do have authoritarian political views, but the quiz seems to make an authoritarian assumption that you'll want the government to enforce your morals.

Filler: articles on higher education, Jews, "public service," etc.

I might not be posting much this week. For one thing, I have an unusually heavy workload between my job and job applications. And I haven't been feeling very inspired to blog lately. I'll write something up, planning to post it, but then stop and think it's not ready to be posted for one reason or another. In fact, I've been seriously toying (isn't that an oxymoron?) with the idea of going on a longer hiatus. If and when I need to move to a new city and start a new job -- which I hope will be by the end of this summer, though it's impossible to say -- I expect that I'd go on hiatus for who-knows-how-long.

But for the sake of having something current on top, here are several articles and blog posts that are worth thinking about:

1. "Where I'm coming from." — Mickey Kaus (of particular interest to readers in California, as Kaus is on the ballot today, running for the Senate against Barbara Boxer)

2. "Higher education's bubble is about to burst." — Glenn Reynolds

3. Jews aren't particularly smarter than the human race as a whole. — Michael Chabon in the New York Times

4. Why the Jews couldn't "go home" to Europe after World War II. — Richard Cohen

5. Why going into "public service" is a better description of working in the private sector than in the public sector. — Thomas Sowell