8 Comments

A football coach who boasts that his team is kicking a field goal for every touchdown scored by the other team would have as much job security as Bill Belichick. There is a similar situation with single family home production since 2007. NIMBY's have been scoring touchdowns since the late 1970's and the "surge" in production in the past five years feels like a series of field goals that could get interrupted by any type of economic downturn. I guess I'm feeling pessimistic today.

Expand full comment

I agree with this post, and that the US, and any nation, should have some level of legal immigration.

But any nation must also be a nation of laws.

Really, we want to decide that some laws are enforced and others are not, based on prevailing political winds (or needs and wants of elites?).

And, yes, many nations really need to up their housing production game if they want higher levels of legal immigration.

BTW, two-thirds of econ grad students in the US are foreign-born.

Not sure what that means, but one could ponder how it impacts research on immigrants.

Expand full comment