The Disadvantages of Protectionist Immigration Restrictions as a Policy to Improve Income Distribution

Seminar on immigration policy arranged by Center for Law, Economics and Financial Institutions (LEFIC).

With Professor Howard F. Chang, University of Pennsylvania.

Abstract

Prof. Chang argues that tax and transfer policies are better than protectionist immigration policies as instruments for raising the after-tax incomes of the least skilled native workers. Policies to protect native workers from immigrant competition in the labor market do no better at promoting distributive justice and are likely to impose a greater economic burden on natives in the country of immigration than the tax alternative. Thus, the best response to concerns about the effect of immigration on the distribution of income among natives is to increase the progressivity of the tax system, not to restrict immigration.