Migration outcomes depend not just on migrant characteristics but critically on aggregate scale: higher sustained inflows create enclave dynamics, wage pressure, and coordination costs that slow economic assimilation and raise local costs, while low, steady inflows accelerate convergence. Policies that ignore scale (e.g., open‑border models) will systematically mispredict both immigrant welfare and host‑community effects.
— Making 'scale' an explicit policy variable reframes the immigration debate from an abstract rights/market choice into a practical trade‑off over labour‑market equilibrium, public goods congestion, and long‑run social integration.
Tyler Cowen
2026.01.07
88% relevant
Cowen’s piece uses recent Frontex/Eurostat numbers showing a ~25–26% decline in irregular arrivals and asylum applications to support the broader empirical point that migration dynamics (their scale and recent trajectories) materially change integration pressures and political outcomes — exactly the mechanism emphasized in the 'Immigration Scale' idea.
2026.01.05
72% relevant
The article invokes Japan as a counterfactual to the U.S. case—arguing that even in low‑immigration Japan complementarities will be modest—touching the same mechanism that this idea highlights: the magnitude and rate of inflows condition economic and social outcomes, so scale matters to how assimilation and externalities play out.
2026.01.05
100% relevant
Warby’s summary of Borjas (chapters cited: assimilation evidence, enclave effects, and labour‑market impacts) and the net employment comparisons he pulls (2019–2025 figures) illustrate scale as the decisive factor.
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