Today's Lesson in Cognitive Dissonance

Blatent:

President Nicolas Sarkozy of France vowed to keep dismantling illegal immigrant camps and rejected complaints that the French authorities were racist and deliberately targeted the Roma for deportation.

Right. And West Bank settlers aren't deliberately targeting Palestinians, and Arizona lawmakers aren't deliberating targeting Mexicans, and Italy isn't deliberately targeting gypsies, and France's Burkha ban isn't targeting Muslims, and etc.

Another European Cartoon Scandal

The Arab European League, a Nasserist nationalist group, has published a cartoon denying the Holocaust (and implying that it is a Zionist hoax) on their website as an act of "civil disobedience". This is intended as a protest against a ruling exonerating a Dutch politician who posted the infamous Danish "Muhammad cartoons" on his website. It appears that the AEL may be prosecuted for the Holocaust cartoon even while no prosecutions came from the Muhammad cartoons. Naturally, European Arabs aren't too happy about the perceived double standard. Frankly, I don't know enough about the Dutch judicial system or the specifics of either case to know whether that reaction is justified or not, but I suspect that it probably is.

Which is not to say that I think the Dutch politician should be prosecuted along with the AEL; I don't think either should be. Even if you think these two animations are not morally equivalent, they are certainly categorically inseparable and I think that hard rules should hold fast: either the freedoms of speech and press should extend to offensive materials or they should not. I believe that they should.

The Dutch prosecutor is apparently arguing that the Danish cartoons do not incite violence while the AEL cartoon does. It's a strange claim considering that (so far at least) the Danish cartoons DID incite violence, if only in response, while the AEL cartoon has not. In any case, should charges of inciting violence be issued when no violence has actually occurred? That's a tough pill for me to swallow.

As I said, it's certainly possible that I am missing some relevant details on this case. But based on what I can tell the Dutch court seems to be applying a double standard. For the sake of principles, they shouldn't.

ht: Passport

New E.U. Visa-free Travel Rules for the Balkans

Serbia, Montenegro, and Macedonia are in (congrats Besir!) but Albania, Bosnia, and Kosovo are out (sorry Arta). This is a mess:

This leads to some interesting weirdness. If you’re an ethnic Serb living in Serbia? Come January 1, you’re good, no problem. Ethnic Serb living in Bosnia? You can’t travel to the EU on your Bosnian passport, but you can easily get a Serbian passport that will let you fly like a bird. Ethnic Serb living in Kosovo? Too bad — you can get a Serbian passport, but it will be the special “Red K” passport that will trigger alarms if you try to cross an EU border.

Ethnic Albanian living in Kosovo? Same drill — you’re stuck in Kosovo. Ethnic Albanian living next door in Macedonia, Montenegro, or Serbia itself? Congratulations! You’re free to go.

Obviously there is going to be some sudden border-crossing in the next few months. Albanians in Albania and Kosovo will suddenly discover roots in Macedonia; Serbs in Kosovo will suddenly develop addresses in Serbia proper. Nationalists on all sides will construe it as evidence that their side is right.

The non-Serb, non-Croat (Muslim) Bosniaks get screwed the most: they don't have another "ethnic homeland" to claim heritage in and get travel permission.

The reason for the pickiness is the fear that poor citizens of Balkan states will flood the E.U. with migrant labor. Arguably, Serbia, Montenegro, and Macedonia are in a better position to stem that tide than the others. While visa-free travel permission does not come with work permits, there are real reasons for worrying that that functions as a mere formality. The E.U. would prefer not to have a flood of undocumented workers, for obvious reasons.

But there could be another reason for being choosy. The three countries left out of the new policy -- Albania, Kosovo, Bosnia -- have Muslim majorities (gasp!), so while the E.U. isn't exactly saying that Muslims aren't wanted, they're sorta saying that Muslims aren't wanted. At least, that's how some Europeans are seeing it.

The Benefits of Migration

They are significant for both the sending and receiving countries, according to a new NBER paper (via Blattman, who has a link to an ungated version). From the abstract:

We find that immigration increases employment, with no evidence of crowding-out of natives, and that investment responds rapidly and vigorously. The inflow of immigrants does not seem to reduce capital intensity nor total factor productivity in the short-run or in the long run. These results imply that immigration increases the total GDP of the receiving country in the short-run one-for-one, without affecting average wages and average income per person.

How is this possible? Perhaps think of potential immigrants as unemployed-natives-in-waiting. Migration allows them to find and fill jobs that would not otherwise exist, thus boosting output without having adverse effects on native workers. In other words, think of migration functioning as in-sourced entrepreneurship. There is no output loss from the sending country because that labor was un- or under-employed anyway.

This effect is not limited to the U.S. or Europe -- the paper covers 14 receiving countries in the OECD, and 74 sending countries -- but perhaps it is limited to capital-rich, post-industrial countries that can benefit from an influx of unskilled laborers. Still, if the result holds up to future study, it may have powerful implications for policymakers in developed and developing countries.

Immigration and the Race to the Top

The IHT has an interesting piece on labor mobility in Europe. Seems that the central and east European economies are losing skilled labor to western European countries. The solution? Policies that encourage skilled workers to move from points further east (e.g., Ukraine, Belarus, etc.).

While the article has a somewhat gloomy tone (highlighting the potential negative impact of labor scarcity on foreign investment), one might also point out that when supply is less than demand, price for the factor in short supply will rise. Hence, emergent labor shortages should produce rising real wages for skilled workers. Shouldn't this be good news?

By the same logic, why does the contemporary U.S. debate on immigration neglect supply, demand, and real wages? Is it reasonable to think that all Mexicans (Latinos more broadly) would move to the U.S. if they could? Wouldn't a mass migration increase the real wage in Mexico, thereby encouraging a reversal of labor flows?

If anybody can point me to a relevant academic literature on this question, please leave a comment.