candid and realistic. that is what i'm trying to do in this book to give a framework how does that with france or germany or vietnam? i don't know. i have some thoughts but hopefully i provided a framework to have people have a more focused discussion. >> this is been wonderful. we are out of time. we've only scratched the surface you do not just the thinnest layer. thank you to the audience for joining us here today if you have questions please contact us using the information on the screen you will get a survey at the end of this i hope you fill it out thank you so much this was wonderful and audience members thank you for joining us and we look forward to at the next heritage event. book.

>> the executive director the free market institute professor of economics at texas tech and the author of this book the political economy is integration of institutions you open your book with this. immigration restrictions prevent exchanges from would be immigrants and people presiding and destination countries are likely the largest policy induced distortion in the global economy. can you explain that e quick. >> post-world war ii we have

seen dramatic reductions and barriers to kurds and services to capital flows a lot on —- along the world of mec increasing restrictions and the movement of people or laborers around the world so the policy is the differences of productivity that they respond to this in the united states with a booming economy in one state and recession and the other people move between them in this worldly have countries that have such bad governance people cannot make use of the human capital when we freedomno to move from one country to another productivity goes up massively economist estimate as we completely eliminated the barriers to labor roughly double global output. nothing that even comes close to that. >> what is the policy solution in your view quick. >> this book explores the difficulties of one policy

solution it is free trade and labor and goods and services. however people are not the same as goods. they can commit crimes w or changees cultures and that is what this book addresses if we allow for the free movement of people people that have dysfunctional governance systems high corruption and those that are responsible for generating in the home country to migrate with them. and in simple terms when cubans leave cubans if they just bring the labor not change the political institutions because once the impacted to bring the united states while in cuba than not only were they not get the big

gains but then we would become less productive was called the new case for immigration restrictions on its most comprehensive investigation of this problem today where we cut the data different ways to see dude demographic on —- to the actually impact the nation countries or do they nothe impact them or enhance them that is an empirical question. host: is the answer all of the above? >> the answer is not systematic evidence a harm our institutions that are acrossible so we look 110 countries initial stocks of immigrants and flow over 20 are. what happens to our economic freedoms and property rights what happens to corruption over that time period how does this impact racist terrorism? and for the most part sometimes we find a positive

impact for economic freedom and we also do case studies when we have a more open border policy and how immigration played a role to slow the spread of socialist movements in the united states and with the welfare state compared to what was going on in europe and we also look at modern case studies looking at mass migration generally those mass migrations enhancer economic freedoms. we don't have that mechanism laid out completely when someone immigrates to somewhere else particularly a place like the t united states they are buying into something their views are not representative so in fact i

gave you the cuba example that is a strong one but i can think of no better and a socialist voting bloc in the united states and killed and immigrants in florida. they t don't replace socialism that tree —- enjoy capitalist america. host: what do you say immigrants deal jobs and depress wage scales? >> okay. that is a b popular belief and culture but among social science on —- scientistst to study the impacts, there is no support for that. over 30 yearsee economist have been debating the wage impact and employment impact but when it comes to jobs there is no impact. it shifts the mix immigrants displaced in one industry more jobs are created in another just like international trade the whole economics for international trade and labor

is it a changes the mix of jobs we do things relatively more productive and the things that they are more relatively productive at the in terms of net number almost infinite demand for goods and services and then have more jobs to create more stuff. does have passionately debated the wage impact so what it has boiled down to is strong disagreements about whether the unskilled immigrants in the united states depress the wages of high school dropouts in the united states and if they do does it last for a year or two or longer? that's really not that important thinking about the day picture of the impact our

institutions the other things that are o popular debate and television and the news is not that controversial there are reasons for not supporting are not about jobs or wages of high school dropouts. host: speaking of the news when you see what's going on on the us-mexico border , people coming in and then be sent out and the wall built, what is your reaction? >> my reaction is we would have as much of an illegal immigration problem if we had an easier path to legality to legal immigration the vast majority of the worlds population is impossible to immigrate legally to the united states when they say legally immigrated have a point i would like to migrate legally you can't do without a massive weight you may not even live to see if you come from was countries around the world when they could come

here without weight there was no quantitative restrictions so if you have checkpoints and a quantitative restrictions to allow people to come in. host: how you lower the emotional discourse we have about immigration in this country? >> i tried to approach it without emotional impact and just look at the economic impact explain that to rational people and then the big concerns so what is the evidence on this and then to come to h a better conclusion will make better decisions when we're using our head and not heart and emotion. host: when did you come up with a name. >> the title of the book comes

from the statue of liberty and with that ?-question-mark is it the wretched and how do they impact the economy and the institutions and my answer is they are not they actually make america the t better place. host: your co-author? >> alex from the cato institute and a great partner on this book. host: going back to the policy indications of the free labor movement, with their still be a process or citizenship or is that outdated? >> there is allied of legitimate concerns and a lot of times it's bundled with how we do things if you want to make citizenship let people

migrate but if you want to make the window before they have access to citizenship ten years or 15 years or make the test harder and include english-language pop-culture references. a lot of things that a people care about i don't have a strong opinion. is it a path that i am all for it. host: to questions about two different issues you address this a little bit but changing the nature of the nation does mass immigration do that? >> i'm not sure what we mean of course it is a complex phenomenon and it will always be evolving. our american culture today is not what it was in the early 19h century and those political institutions have changed to

mirror that. mixing immigration will obviously change but we should do a good job of teaching about what made america great in welcoming immigrants to those ideas rather think a lot of the a problem is americans moving away from traditional american values with private property rights and economic freedom for people. host: what about the issue of terrorism? > is basically a non- issue with legal immigration people want to commitor terrorist acts there is a much easier way to get the immigration visa claim period we look at this we have no relationship between immigration and increased rates of terrorism in the united states or elsewhere to be in a conflict of the civil war. host: in 1986 there was an immigration amnesty president

reagan is that you again in your view? >> listen have more than 10 million people residing illegally in the united states if it's president trump viewed as anti-immigration or obama before him they are not all being deported they are within society apart to do that. so i cannot see how we benefit by having them here illegally when they could be here legally. bringing them above the board and geti them on the books and make it official. . . . .