Shattering Immigration Myths: Data Beyond Borders

Earlier this month, Joe Biden made his first visit to the southern United States border as President, after two years of back-and-forth over his administration's immigration policy. While the cost-benefit debate of immigration has always been politically contentious, a new book by economists Leah Boustan and Ran Abramitzky provides data and insight on how decades of immigration policy have shaped the United States over time. Luigi and Bethany sit with Boustan to unpack gender, country of origin, culture, and other cross-sectional variations in this data. How do immigrants and their succeeding generations impact the jobs, wages, and housing prices for the native-born? Conversely, who is left to make a change if all motivated people leave a country? Can data sway the immigration story beyond the border crisis?

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