Alex Nowrasteh - Wretched Refuse?: The Political Economy of Immigration and Institutions

Wretched Refuse?

Economic arguments against immigration suggest that immigrants undermine the culture, institutions, and productivity of destination countries. But is that true? Nowrasteh and Powell systematically analyze cross-country evidence and case studies of the potential negative effects of immigration on economic freedom, corruption, culture, and terrorism. They find that immigrants do not destroy the institutions responsible for prosperity and, in some cases, even improve them.

Alex Nowrasteh is the director of immigration studies at the Cato Institutes Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity. He is a native of Southern California and received a BA in economics from George Mason University and his MSc in economic history from the London School of Economics.

Nowrasteh is one of the most commonly cited experts on immigration policy in the United States. His research has been cited widely in the press and he is the author of numerous opinion pieces that have appeared in the Wall Street Journal , USA Today , the Washington Post , and most other major publications in the United States. He also regularly appears on Fox News, MSNBC, Bloomberg, National Public Radio, and numerous television and radio stations across the United States. His peerreviewed academic publications have appeared in the World Bank Economic Review , the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization , Economic Affairs , the Fletcher Security Review , the Journal of Bioeconomics , and Public Choice .

Benjamin Powell is the Executive Director of the Free Market Institute and a Professor of Economics in the Rawls College of Business at Texas Tech University and a Senior Fellow with the Independent Institute. He is the secretary-treasurer of the Southern Economic Association and the Association of Private Enterprise Education. He earned his BS in economics and finance from the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, and his MA and PhD in economics from George Mason University.

Powell is the author of Out of Poverty: Sweatshops in the Global Economy (Cambridge University Press, 2014), coauthor of Socialism Sucks: Two Economists Drink Their Way through the Unfree World (Regnery, 2019), and editor or coeditor of four other books, including The Economics of Immigration: Market-Based Approaches, Social Science, and Public Policy (Oxford University Press, 2015). He is the author of more than seventy-five scholarly articles and policy studies. Powells research findings have been reported in hundreds of popular press outlets, including the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times . He also writes frequently for the popular press. His popular writing has appeared in the Chicago Tribune , New York Post , the Dallas Morning News , and many other outlets. He has appeared on numerous radio and television shows, including Fox News Channel, CNN, MSNBC, Showtime, and CNBC, and he was a regular guest commentator on Fox Businesss Freedom Watch and Stossel .

Founding Editors

Timur Kuran, Duke University

Peter J. Boettke, George Mason University

This interdisciplinary series promotes original theoretical and empirical research as well as integrative syntheses involving links between individual choice, institutions, and social outcomes. Contributions are welcome from across the social sciences, particularly in the areas where economic analysis is joined with other disciplines such as comparative political economy, new institutional economics, and behavioral economics.

Books in the Series:

TERRY L. ANDERSON and GARY D. LIBECAP Environmental Markets: A Property Rights Approach

MORRIS B. HOFFMAN The Punishers Brain: The Evolution of Judge and Jury

PETER T. LEESON Anarchy Unbound: Why Self-Governance Works Better Than You Think

BENJAMIN POWELL Out of Poverty: Sweatshops in the Global Economy

CASS R. SUNSTEIN The Ethics of Influence: Government in the Age of Behavioral Science

JARED RUBIN Rulers, Religion, and Riches: Why the West Got Rich and the Middle East Did Not

JEAN-PHILIPPE PLATTEAU Islam Instrumentalized: Religion and Politics in Historical Perspective

TAIZU ZHANG The Laws and Economics of Confucianism: Kinship and Property in Preindustrial China and England

ROGER KOPPL Expert Failure

MICHAEL C. MUNGER Tomorrow 3.0: Transaction Costs and the Sharing Economy

CAROLYN M. WARNER , RAMAZAN KILIN , CHRISTOPHER W. HALE , and ADAM B. COHEN Generating Generosity in Catholicism and Islam: Beliefs, Institutions, and Public Goods Provision

RANDALL G. HOLCOMBE Political Capitalism: How Political Influence Is Made and Maintained

PAUL DRAGOS ALIGICA Public Entrepreneurship, Citizenship, and Self-Governance

VERNON L. SMITH AND BART J. WILSON Humanomics: Moral Sentiments and the Wealth of Nations for the Twenty-First Century

ANDREAS THIEL , WILLIAM A. BLOMQUIST , AND DUSTIN E. GARRICK Governing Complexity: Analyzing and Applying Polycentricity

Wretched Refuse?

The Political Economy of Immigration and Institutions

Alex Nowrasteh

Cato Institute

Benjamin Powell

Texas Tech University

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Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781108477635

DOI: 10.1017/9781108776899

Alex Nowrasteh and Benjamin Powell 2021

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2021

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Nowrasteh, Alex, author. | Powell, Benjamin, 1978 author.

Title : Wretched refuse? : the political economy of immigration and institutions / Alex Nowrasteh, Cato Institute, Benjamin Powell, Texas Tech University.

Description : 1 Edition. | New York : Cambridge University Press, 2020. | Series: Cambridge studies in economics, choice, and society | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: This chapter makes the standard economic case for free immigration. It outlines the massive global gains in output that eliminating immigration restrictions could create. It reviews the increased earnings and productivity of people based on place specific productivity, it reviews the evidence of the impact of immigraiton on jobs, wages, and fiscal deficits in destination countries Provided by publisher.

Identifiers : LCCN 2020034155 (print) | LCCN 2020034156 (ebook) | ISBN 9781108477635 (hardback) | ISBN 9781108702454 (paperback) | ISBN 9781108776899 (epub)