The (Non-Parochial) Welfare Economics of Immigration

John Roemer

No 97-02, Discussion Papers from University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics

Abstract: The author studies the effect of immigration on world welfare. The world consists of two areas, South and North, the former populated by low-skill workers, and the latter by low- and high-skill workers. Immigrants from the South to the North have two effects in the North: a mixed native-foreign working-class lowers union power, and immigrants also lower the solidarity of the employed citizens with the unemployed. Thus, the replacement ratio falls with the frequency of immigrants in the low-skill pool. The author calculates the optimal level of immigration, from an observer's point of view who maximizes world welfare, with a variety of social welfare functions. The interesting result is that the optimal level of immigration for an egalitarian observer is significantly less than the open-borders equilibrium level. This result is due to the model's two non-Walrasian features: the union bargaining problem and the political economy of the welfare state.

Keywords: immigration; political economy; welfare (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D60 F22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 22 pages
Date: 1997-03
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
Working Paper: THE (NON-PAROCHIAL) WELFARE ECONOMICS OF IMMIGRATION
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kud:kuiedp:9702

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Papers from University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics Oester Farimagsgade 5, Building 26, DK-1353 Copenhagen K., Denmark. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Thomas Hoffmann ().