Alberto Alesina on Immigration and Redistribution

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4.7 • 4.3K Ratings

🗓️ 30 July 2018

⏱️ 66 minutes

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Summary

Alberto Alesina of Harvard University talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about how people in the US and five European countries perceive the population and characteristics of legal immigrants. Reporting on research with Armando Miano and Stefanie Stantcheva, Alesina finds that individuals systematically overestimate the number of immigrants while underestimating their standard of living. His research also finds that support for welfare payments to the poor is related to the perception people have of the size of the immigrant population and their economic status. The conversation concludes with a discussion of why people's perceptions are so inaccurate and the implications of perception for public policy.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty.
0:08.0	I'm your host, Russ Roberts of Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
0:12.6	Our website is econtalk.org where you can subscribe, comment on this podcast, and find
0:17.6	links and other information related to today's conversation.
0:20.5	We'll also find our archives where you can listen to every episode we've ever done going
0:24.8	back to 2006.
0:27.0	Our email address is mailadycontalk.org.
0:29.0	We'd love to hear from you.
0:33.6	Today is July 18th, 2018, and my guest is Alberto Alicina, the Nathaniel Robes Professor
0:40.1	of Political Economy and the Department of Economics at Harvard University.
0:44.0	He previously appeared on e-contalk in 2016 to discuss austerity and stimulus.
0:49.7	Alberto, welcome back to e-contalk.
0:52.4	Thank you.
0:53.4	I'm glad to be here.
0:54.5	Our topic for today is a recent paper that you wrote with Armando Miano and Stephanie
0:59.1	Stoncheva.
1:00.1	The title of the paper is Immigration and Redistribution, and the paper looks at attitudes and knowledge
1:08.3	that people have of immigrants, and then their attitudes toward redistribution generally.
1:12.7	What was your goal in writing this paper?
1:16.0	Well, this paper is part of a broad research project that I have been following the last
1:23.8	several years about giving the growth in equality in some places.
1:29.6	What are the preference for people about redistribution?
	...

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