‘He was the rock from which we all started’: How Nobel Prize winner David Card influenced thinking on immigration and jobs
2021/10/14 Leave a comment
One of the better articles on his work and contribution:
Ten years after the Mariel Boatlift brought more than 125,000 Cuban immigrants to Florida, an economist named David Card wrote about the immigrant influx and its impact on Miami’s labor market.
Card determined there was “virtually no effect” on wages and jobless rates of the city’s less skilled workers. Three years after those conclusions, Card’s work on immigration — as well as other research on hot-button topics like minimum wage — have landed him the honor of a 2021 Nobel Prize in economics.
“His studies from the early 1990s challenged conventional wisdom, leading to new analyses and additional insights,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said. The other award recipients were Joshua Angrist of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Guido Imbens from Stanford University.
It’s often difficult to see the immediate implications of research, Card said in a press conference held hours after learning he was one of three people receiving the prominent prize.
Big-picture questions
But for some who focus on big-picture questions of immigration and economic competitiveness, the impact of Card’s research at the University of California, Berkeley, and previously at the University of Chicago and Princeton University is clear to see, even as the debate over immigration reform continues.
“He was the rock from which we all started,” according to Jeremy Robbins, executive director of New American Economy. The organization — founded 11 years ago by Michael Bloomberg, the data-driven former New York City mayor — focuses on the ways to grow local economies that meld immigration reform and access for people coming to America.
Immigrants or their children founded 40% of Fortune 500 companies, according to New American Economy’s first report.
When New American Economy works with local leaders in places where new immigrants are arriving, Robbins said they start with scrutiny of the facts on the ground. “The first thing we always do, we show who is there, where they work. In the same insight of David Card, you have to show with data what impact immigrants are having in the communities where they are living.”
Card’s impact has been “enormous,” according to Alex Nowrasteh, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. “He really does show the cost of immigration has been systemically exaggerated over the years and decades.”
But still immigration debates continue — and that’s because, Nowrasteh said, “people don’t know or care about what the actual research says and they rely on stereotypes or anecdotes.” There are other other academic methods to show larger immigrant impacts on wages, but Card’s formulas and approaches, Nowrasteh said, set the real standard.
Multicultural Meanderings 