Out-takes, part 2: Want To Boost The Economy (And Make The World Better)? Let In More Immigrants

Retro-actively declaring it in honor of my Mom, Dad, and Grandmother, who all immigrated to this country from the Philippines, I wrote this post for Co.Exist.

Two of the interviews contained quite a bit of material that I just couldn’t squeeze in. Below is the full interview, unedited, with Michael Clemens, senior fellow at the Center for Global Development where he leads their research efforts on migration policy (if you haven’t seen his name in one of the many articles about the current immigration debate, you’re probably reading the wrong things). Here is the other interview with Solome Lemma.

You’ve written that barriers preventing more people in poorer countries from migrating to richer countries cost the global economy roughly half its potential GDP. In the simplest possible terms, how did you come up with that number?

That number roughly represents the best estimates—sophisticated but inherently rough—that economic researchers have come up with in a variety of peer-reviewed studies. I summarize that research in this paper (open access). 

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Out-takes, part 1: Want To Boost The Economy (And Make The World Better)? Let In More Immigrants

Retro-actively declaring it in honor of my Mom, Dad, and Grandmother, who all immigrated to this country from the Philippines, I wrote this post for Co.Exist.

Two of the interviews contained quite a bit of material that I just couldn’t squeeze in. Below is the full interview, unedited, with Solome Lemma, who co-founded a platform for the African diaspora to better coordinate and engage in social change in their countries of origin. Here is the other interview with Michael Clemens.

When you co-founded AiD a few years ago, what made it the right time for such a platform? 

I have been living with the idea for AiD for a long time, since 2008 or 2009. We started working on it more intensively in 2011 and the organization launched publicly in October of 2012.

The time is right for many reasons.

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#happyfriday

#happyfriday

Sea Lion.

Sea Lion.

I’ll have a lager, please.  (at Lickety Split)

I’ll have a lager, please. (at Lickety Split)

Springtime in #Harlem arrives like a thief in the night (at Hamilton Heights)

Springtime in #Harlem arrives like a thief in the night (at Hamilton Heights)

Bennie is ready to #party.  (at 3333 Broadway)

Bennie is ready to #party. (at 3333 Broadway)

#philly #nofilter  (at Philadelphia 30th Street Station)

#philly #nofilter (at Philadelphia 30th Street Station)

  

literaryjukebox:

New York blends the gift of privacy with the excitement of participation; and better than most dense communities it succeeds in insulating the individual (if he wants it, and almost everybody wants or needs it) against all enormous and violent and wonderful events that are taking place every minute. … New York is peculiarly constructed to absorb almost anything that comes along (whether a thousand-foot liner out of the East or a twenty-thousand-man convention out of the West) without inflicting the event on its inhabitants; so that every event is, in a sense, optional, and the inhabitant is in the happy position of being able to choose his spectacle and so conserve his soul.

E. B. White in Here Is New York

Song: “City of Refuge” by Abigail Washburn

iTunes :: Amazon :: Back to Brain Pickings

Riverside Park. #citylife #urbanliving #cities #nyc #nofilter  (at Riverside Park Soccer Fields)

Riverside Park. #citylife #urbanliving #cities #nyc #nofilter (at Riverside Park Soccer Fields)

Empowering girls all day and night.  (at 3333 Broadway)

Empowering girls all day and night. (at 3333 Broadway)

#Jam.

#sunrise (at 3333 Broadway)

#sunrise (at 3333 Broadway)

On average, it took participants seven minutes to answer the questions using a search engine, and 22 minutes using the University of Michigan’s library. Hal Varian, Google’s chief economist, then calculated that those savings worked out to 3.75 minutes per day for the typical user. Assigning that time a value of $22 per hour (the average wage in America), he reckons search generates $500 of consumer surplus per user annually, or $65 billion-$150 billion nationally.