Lant Pritchett
Development economist; argues that letting people move to rich countries does more for the poor than aid, and wrote Let Their People Come.
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Korrents What they believe 14 beliefs — each backed by an exact quote.
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Recent
Hostility to migration is the last gasp of a dying system rather than the shape of the future.
The negativity around migration is the last breath of a moribund system and the transition to a more realistic approach.
Lant Pritchett, economist: ‘Negativity around migration is the last breath of a moribund system’ Said 29 Nov 2023
Without immigrants Spain’s labour force falls from 22.6 to 15.7 million by 2050, far too few to run its economy.
In the absence of immigrants, between 2020 and 2050 Spain’s labor force (its active population) will drop from 22.6 to 15.7 million people. You’re not going to fill all the jobs needed in a modern and sophisticated economy like that of Spain’s with 15.7 million people.
Lant Pritchett, economist: ‘Negativity around migration is the last breath of a moribund system’ Said 29 Nov 2023
Demography is about to turn the rich world’s problem from finding a job for every person into finding a person for every job.
But once the demographics reverse, the challenge will be to find a person for every job. In the coming years, the impact of demographic changes is going to lead to chronic labor shortages.
Lant Pritchett, economist: ‘Negativity around migration is the last breath of a moribund system’ Said 29 Nov 2023
Show 11 more
Immigration policy should run on three separate tracks: future citizens, people allowed to work, and people admitted out of necessity.
Governments should create three tracks for people who come to live in their country. One track is that of people who hope to become Spanish. Another is that of those who we are going to allow to live and work here; the third is that of those of we are going to allow to be in Spain out of necessity.
Lant Pritchett, economist: ‘Negativity around migration is the last breath of a moribund system’ Said 29 Nov 2023
Public hostility to immigration comes from fusing “who may work here” with “who becomes one of us”, and separating the two dissolves it.
When you separate those two questions in public dialogue, the negative attitudes disappear.
Lant Pritchett, economist: ‘Negativity around migration is the last breath of a moribund system’ Said 29 Nov 2023
Wanting to preserve a national culture is a legitimate human impulse and not in itself a racist one.
Valuing traditions, culture and history is simply a legitimate part of the human experience, and there is nothing wrong with preserving that.
Lant Pritchett, economist: ‘Negativity around migration is the last breath of a moribund system’ Said 29 Nov 2023
Anti-immigration parties gain ground by generating fear, not by winning the argument about what immigration does.
The thing about the far-right parties is that they are trying to get people to equate all foreigners in a country with a threat to our future, but they are only gaining ground because of their ability to generate fear.
Lant Pritchett, economist: ‘Negativity around migration is the last breath of a moribund system’ Said 29 Nov 2023
Migrants filling low-skill jobs in rich countries take nobody’s job, because the native workforce is shrinking faster than those jobs are appearing.
According to my numbers, in the United States there will be a net of 3.24 million new low-skill jobs, but there will also be 4.7 million fewer people in the labor force.
Lant Pritchett, economist: ‘Negativity around migration is the last breath of a moribund system’ Said 29 Nov 2023
The rich world is spending its scarcest resource, elite talent, on economising the most abundant resource on earth: ordinary labour.
My key argument is that in the current global economy we have some of the scarcest resources on the planet devoting themselves to economizing one of the most abundant resources on the planet.
Choose People Said 2 Mar 2023
Labour-saving innovation in rich countries is aimed at the only asset most of the world’s poor have to sell.
Therefore, we have the perverse situation that the richest people are hiring some of the most talented and technologically sophisticated people on the planet to engage in innovation aimed at driving down the demand for labor—the major and often only asset of the world’s poor.
Choose People Said 2 Mar 2023
The world economy is flat for capital, goods and ideas, and has a legal cliff at the border for people.
This is not because there are not people who would drive trucks for Amazon in the world, and not because “natural” scientific progress has made machines that drive trucks easy and cheap, but because in a global economy which is “flat” for capital, information, and goods, there is a legal “cliff at the border” for labor, as prices don’t reflect scarcity.
Choose People Said 2 Mar 2023
Innovation that answers a policy-made price rather than real scarcity leaves the world no better off, however good the science inside it.
But, whether it makes financial sense or not for the individuals involved, they are responding to distorted prices, not scarcity, and the world is not better off from their invention and innovation.
Choose People Said 2 Mar 2023
Opening legal pathways for people to move to the jobs would solve rich countries’ labour shortage and lift millions out of poverty at the same time.
If we collectively devoted the same levels of investment and inventive power and entrepreneurship to developing more and better legal pathways for people to move across borders to needed jobs, including a variety of modalities for labor mobility, we could solve the growing challenge of labor scarcity.
Choose People Said 2 Mar 2023
Policy can manufacture a false necessity, and false necessity is the mother of wasteful invention.
There is an old saying that “necessity is the mother of invention” but it is also true that policies can create false necessity and false necessity can be the mother of costly, resource consuming, dumb inventions.
Choose People Said 2 Mar 2023
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