Immigration is a topic still dominating the news. How people feel about the characteristics of immigrants in heir home countries, and how these characteristics lead them to feel about providing welfare benefits to them, was the topic of this episode with Alberto Alesina of Harvard University. Alesina and his colleagues explored native people’s perceptions about the number of immigrants living in their country, their standards of living, and their characteristics, and then looked at how these perceptions shaped the way respondents felt about redistribution in favor of immigrants. The results were astounding.
Which of Alesina’s findings surprised you most? Did you ask yourself the same questions Alesina posed while you were listening? How did your answers compare to Alesina’s findings?
1- How did the design of Alesina’s survey (the varying order of questions on immigration and redistribution) affect people’s answers? Why do you think this was the case? What does this suggest about the structure of policy debates in general?
2- How did Alesina find the respondents’ ideology affected their answers? To what extent did these results surprise you?
3- Alesina admits that his work offers no prescription for appropriate policies on immigration and redistribution, in part because, people “have no interest in correcting their biases.” To what extent do you believe this to be true? Why might people be unwilling to make such a correction? Is this more an information or an ideology problem? Explain.
4- In a monologue a few weeks prior to this episode, host Russ Roberts placed a large share of the blame for our deteriorating political discourse on the media and the (too?) easy access to information we have at our fingertips today. How does Roberts argue that this plays into the issue of immigration and redistribution? In what ways might we encourage a conversation on these issues that is both more civil and more productive?
5- The interview concludes with a question left unanswered- both in the course of the conversation and in Alesina’s empirical work. How would you answer thew following: How can/should immigrants integrate into cultures that are not melting pots, like America, but rather “little pots that don’t melt,” such as in Europe?
READER COMMENTS
SaveyourSelf
Aug 7 2018 at 10:37am
There is a concept called “Status quo bias” whereby people prefer the current state of affairs to change and even perceive any change from that baseline as a loss. I don’t think bias is the right word, however. It is more accurately called a “Status quo heuristic”. A heuristic or rule of thumb is a time and work saving device. The quote above suggesting that people have no interest in correcting their biases sounds—to me—like a restatement of the status quo heuristic and that’s not a bad thing. Our world is very complex. All decisions have opportunity costs, and the future is largely unknowable. It is likely that most decisions will make us worse off, either directly or through unintended consequences and externalities. A natural reflex to oppose rapid change is healthy and—from the perspective of survival—logical.
In the few instances that humans are willing to devote the time, focus, effort, and resources to setting aside the status quo heuristic to fully consider a proposed change, I suspect they would be willing to “correct their biases” if there was enough evidence. If, however, they found the evidence wanting, they would likely fall back on their status quo heuristic. Thus, an apparent lack of interest in “correcting their biases” may be a reasoned rebuke of the current state of evidence on any given question.
Finally, the human brain has many other heuristics that compete with the status quo heuristic. One that comes to mind when I consider the questions of redistribution and immigration is confidence in “truth”. According to Daniel Khanaman’s book, Thinking Fast and Thinking Slow, people have a difficult time differentiating truth from repetition. This is likely because we have an inborn, unconscious heuristic that classifies details in our environment to which we are repeatedly exposed without negative consequences as safe. This automatic categorization scheme was originally intended for plants and animals, but was easily applied to words and ideas once humans were able to speak. Throw five instances of a lie in a pot with one instance of truth and the majority of humanity will believe the lie or act as if they believe it and fear the truth or behave as if they fear it.
The solution to the problems of these heuristics, I believe, is the scientific method. People understand and respect competition. Run two or more ideas against one another in real time, document the race and, especially, the winner, and most people will accept the results as more valid than a very great deal of repetition. If we want more people to change their minds, we have to run the races… and win.
SaveyourSelf
Aug 7 2018 at 11:12am
I don’t understand why we would want integration of culture. Variety is the spice of life. What would be the benefit of an Italian cook in America and making hamburgers? How would that benefit society?
The only integration that matters is integration in free markets. To that end, the rules for healthy participation in free markets are vitally important. Understanding what those rules are and requiring that all citizens and guests both know them and abide by them are the keys to success in any modern society. If we were smart, we’d even make those rules the precepts of citizenship
Gott
Aug 7 2018 at 1:32pm
Does “understanding what those rules are” imply that they need to speak the local language as a precept of citizenship? Is it the government’s responsibility to provide the rules in enough languages to include some large percent of the total immigrant/non-native speaking population?
SaveyourSelf
Aug 7 2018 at 4:02pm
Gott,
So far as I can tell, speaking identical languages is not required to operate in a market. A common language helps speed things up and lowers transaction costs, for sure, but is not required. Since it is not required, it makes no sense to include it in a citizenship agreement. Since it is not in the citizenship agreement, the government has no role in language. The government is literally a group of people specializing in the fulfillment of the obligations of citizens to one another. A proper government, anyway.
SaveyourSelf
Aug 8 2018 at 2:12pm
As to your very practical second question, it could go several ways. The society and perhaps its government could offer the tests of citizenship in only a single language and require parties interested in citizenship to demonstrate at least enough understanding of that language to comprehend the rules of citizenship. I don’t agree with this position because it implies language is central to citizenship. Language, strictly speaking, has nothing to do with citizenship. It is possible, I guess, to make language a part of citizenship. But that’s a perversion of citizenship. It wouldn’t be the worse perversion ever, and a society could function fine with a single language requirement being an element of citizenship. But the downside and the risk is greater than the benefit, in my opinion. Citizenship can function perfectly well without a common language. It is not difficult to see, after all, when someone is crying or bleeding and the majority of citizenship is centered around the prevention of physical harm.
A better alternative is to leave language out of citizenship. In that case, as you point out, language can serve as a barrier to understanding the rules of citizenship. That’s a real problem if the rules of citizenship are critical to functioning in society. A few practical solutions come to mind. One is to offer the citizenship test in many languages, both written and verbal. This is not as difficult as it sounds because once the instruction and test is translated and recorded once, repetition is as simple as hitting ‘print’ or pushing ‘play’. A second practical solution is to declare that the citizenship trial could take place in whatever manner convenient to the person administering the exam, with the expectation that the person taking the test is expected to bring an interpreter if they don’t comprehend the language of the administrator. Third, it is not technically necessary for a single entity or institution to give the instruction on citizenship. In theory, every citizens is party to the contract and understands its tenants. The citizenship contract is between citizens, after all, not between private citizens and government. Thus, as long as there is a citizen somewhere who speaks the language of the alien in question, then that person could administer the oath to the new citizen.
Thanks for the question.
Amy Willis
Aug 7 2018 at 1:44pm
I love your reply! And while I won’t argue with it, there certainly are those who would add that there are “rules” of democratic citizenship that also need to be known and followed… And that might leave more room for disagreement. Of course, your argument is also somewhat historically unique… but again, you’re singing to the choir with me.
SaveyourSelf
Aug 7 2018 at 5:56pm
Amy,
You wrote that, “there certainly are those who would add that there are “rules” of democratic citizenship that also need to be known and followed.”
What you wrote is really interesting. I’ve never heard of democratic citizenship. I wonder what its rules are. And how would those rules differ from, say, monarchical citizenship—which I assume must also be a thing. This might explain a question I’ve had for years, which centers around the many questions on the US Citizen’s entrance exam that are irrelevant to citizenship like ‘How many representatives are there in the house of representatives?’ and ‘According to the US Constitution, which one of the following powers belongs to the state (create an army, print money, provide schooling and education, make treaties).’ And ‘What do we call the first ten amendments to the constitution?’ or ‘When was the Constitution written?’
Even now I throw my hands up and wonder, “what the h*** does that have to do with citizenship?” Nothing, I am quite certain. But maybe questions like these have something to do with “democratic citizenship???”
Thanks, Amy, you’ve given me more to think about and research.
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