Monday, August 04, 2014

To my surprise a left-wing economics professor...

Professor Robert Rowthorn is an Emeritus Professor of Economics at Cambridge University. He is said to be one of the most eminent of left-wing economists in the UK. So I was pleasantly surprised by the findings of his research paper on the economics of mass immigration.

In short, Professor Rowthorn's review of current research does not find any significant boosts to the economy from mass immigration. This means that the other negative effects of mass immigration, such as building on the green belt or crowding in the cities, means that the consequences of mass immigration ‘are mostly negative for the existing population of the UK and their descendants’.

From the Daily Mail report:
Professor Rowthorn, a former consultant to the International Monetary Fund and the UN Trade and Development Commission, said in his report that there may be no economic gains from immigration at all.

If there are, they will be outweighed by extra costs imposed by the strain on housing, land, schools, hospitals, water supplies and transport.

He said in a landmark report for the Civitas think tank: ‘Unrestrained population growth would eventually have a negative impact on the standard of living through its environmental effects such as overcrowding, congestion and loss of amenity.

The Professor notes that it is possible for mass immigration to have an overall negative effect:
‘If many of the immigrants fail to get jobs, or if they end up in low skill jobs or displace native workers, large-scale immigration will have a negative impact on GDP per capita and on government finances,’ he added.

The impact could be positive or negative but either way it is unlikely to be very large. The only thing that is certain is that immigration on the present scale, if it continues, will lead to much faster population growth and a much larger total GDP than would otherwise be the case, with consequent pressure on infrastructure and the environment.’

(Related to this last paragraph see the data on the disability pension in the UK here.)

7 comments:

  1. The key to understanding it is the "emeritus" part. If he wasn't retired he'd be a little more circumspect.

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  2. although the wealthy benefit from mass immigration in the short term with high property prices and cheap labour, in the long run it is the global socialists who win because a big, authoritarian government is the only thing that can keep a mass of diverse people in line, e.g. this governments data retention laws, and the former governments 'offends and insults' law and media censorship laws, etc.

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  3. Left-wing political parties need immigrants because they vote for them. To be precise they need more low paid, uneducated citizens whose main source of income is welfare. Mass immigration is the answer.

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  4. Immigrants almost always displace natives and compete in the job market.

    That's the whole idea for business!!!

    As for negative impact, what about White Genocide by forced assimilation which mass immigration and enforced multiculturalism produce by design.

    That's the bigger issue economically and morally.

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  5. Garbage decision by the Government on the s18C amendment.

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  6. Sounds like the migrants started moving into Rowthorn's own neighborhood.

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  7. What I hate the most is how, if a white couple objects to their son/daughter marrying a non-white person, they're branded racists and bigots, yet if a 'minority' family objects to their son/daughter marrying outside their ethnic group they're "just protecting their culture".

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