A01=George J. Borjas
African Americans
Americans
Author_George J. Borjas
Calculation
Capitalism
Category=JBFH
Category=JPQB
Category=KCP
Citizenship of the United States
Consumer
Cost-benefit analysis
Dani Rodrik
David Card
Demography
Developed country
Economic efficiency
Economic growth
Economic impact analysis
Economic inequality
Economics
Economist
Economy
Economy of the United States
Employment
Entrepreneurship
eq_bestseller
eq_business-finance-law
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Ethnic enclave
Ethnic group
Externality
Gary Becker
George J. Borjas
Household
Human capital
Illegal immigration
Immigration
Immigration and Naturalization Service
Immigration policy
Immigration reform
Immigration to the United States
Incentive
Income
Income distribution
Income in the United States
International trade
Legislation
Market impact
Mexicans
Multiculturalism
National Longitudinal Surveys
Nationality
Orley Ashenfelter
Percentage point
Peter Brimelow
Point system (driving)
Profession
Redistribution of income and wealth
Refugee
Second Great Migration (African American)
Sherwin Rosen
Skilled worker
Social mobility
Supply (economics)
Tax
Taxpayer
Underclass
Unemployment
United States
Wage
Wealth
Welfare
Welfare dependency
Welfare reform
Welfare state
Workforce
Year
Product details
- ISBN 9780691088969
- Weight: 425g
- Dimensions: 152 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 15 Apr 2001
- Publisher: Princeton University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
The U.S. took in more than a million immigrants per year in the late 1990s, more than at any other time in history. For humanitarian and many other reasons, this may be good news. But as George Borjas shows in Heaven's Door, it's decidedly mixed news for the American economy--and positively bad news for the country's poorest citizens. Widely regarded as the country's leading immigration economist, Borjas presents the most comprehensive, accessible, and up-to-date account yet of the economic impact of recent immigration on America. He reveals that the benefits of immigration have been greatly exaggerated and that, if we allow immigration to continue unabated and unmodified, we are supporting an astonishing transfer of wealth from the poorest people in the country, who are disproportionately minorities, to the richest. In the course of the book, Borjas carefully analyzes immigrants' skills, national origins, welfare use, economic mobility, and impact on the labor market, and he makes groundbreaking use of new data to trace current trends in ethnic segregation. He also evaluates the implications of the evidence for the type of immigration policy the that U.S. should pursue.
Some of his findings are dramatic: Despite estimates that range into hundreds of billions of dollars, net annual gains from immigration are only about $8 billion. In dragging down wages, immigration currently shifts about $160 billion per year from workers to employers and users of immigrants' services. Immigrants today are less skilled than their predecessors, more likely to re-quire public assistance, and far more likely to have children who remain in poor, segregated communities. Borjas considers the moral arguments against restricting immigration and writes eloquently about his own past as an immigrant from Cuba. But he concludes that in the current economic climate--which is less conducive to mass immigration of unskilled labor than past eras--it would be fair and wise to return immigration to the levels of the 1970s (roughly 500,000 per year) and institute policies to favor more skilled immigrants.
George J. Borjas is Pforzheimer Professor of Public Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government Harvard University and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is the author of several books, including Wage Policy in the Federal Bureaucracy, Friends or Strangers: The Impact of Immigrants on the U.S. Economy and Labor Economics.
