Today, I am an Indian

[KrazyHorse]

Dear Matthew:

We are pleased to confirm that the H-1B Change of Status Petition filed by Goldman Sachs on your behalf has been approved by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)

[Japher]

Would that be "insourcing"?

[Drake Tungsten]

Stealing skilled immigrants away from their home countries.

[Tuberski]

Thank you. Come again.

ACK!

[KrazyHorse]

Stealing skilled immigrants away from their home countries.

It's only fair. I just stole 6 years of financial support worth ~500k from US undergraduates and the US government.

EDIT: still non-immigrant status, however. Though it is a dual-intent visa...

[-Jrabbit]

What's your status? Alien on parole?

[KrazyHorse]

H-1B is temporary employment. "Temporary" meaning up to 6 years. Dual-intent means that it's acceptable to apply for permanent residency while on H-1B status. We'll see how thing go. Wife still wants to live in London at some point.

[VetLegion]

Getting to work for Goldman Sachs

Depressing prices of native workforce

USA

[Felch]

A Canuck working at Goldman Sachs does not make America any poorer.

[KrazyHorse]

Getting to work for Goldman Sachs

Depressing prices of native workforce

Could you please explain to me why depressing the wages of the "native workforce" is a bad thing when the portion of the "native workforce" I have an impact on is in the top 1% of the income distribution of the US?

When an exogenous supply shock (me!) causes the wages of a certain portion of the labour force go down the real wages of everybody else go up (the things I produce are produced more cheaply, allowing others to purchase more of them with the same nominal wage). The economic effects of this are the same as the effects of an exogenous demand shock for labour caused by technological innovation. In other words, if somebody invented a robot which could do my job with the operational cost per year equal to my salary, would you say this was a bad thing because it "depresses the wages of the native workforce"? If so, then you're nothing more than a Luddite. And at least the Luddites protested the displacement of workers who were not paid ridiculous sums of money.

Importing skilled workers is beneficial in every way:

1) It increases the general welfare of the natives of the country (allows more to be produced with less)
2) It reduces income inequality amongst the natives of the country (transfers wealth from highly-skilled, highly-paid workers to lower-paid workers)
3) It benefits the imported worker

For the country losing the skilled worker, the effects are generally negative. However, it's been hypothesized that when the country in question is very poor relative to the country gaining the skilled worker, the prospect of "winning the lottery" (getting to work in a high-income country) causes much more human capital investment than would otherwise be the case, increasing welfare there as well. Likely the biggest losers in skilled worker migration are countries which already have high human capital development (so the elasticity of supply is not strong).

Russia and much of the Eastern Bloc are enormous losers when it comes to skilled labour migration. They had a highly-educated workforce, so foreign demand has little effect on educational levels. Meanwhile, they are rather poorer than are countries with similar cultures and languages (it's easier for Russians to learn English than it is for Chinese to learn English) so the incentives to migrate are high and the impediments low.

[Dauphin]

Justifying the displacement of natives.

[KrazyHorse]

Nice play on words.

[VetLegion]

H1B is for engineers, programmers, etc. Nice guys that have mortgages you know.

[KrazyHorse]

Nice guys that ALREADY MAKE FAR MORE THAN THE AVERAGE PERSON



Why is it okay for machines to displace low-income workers in favour of high-income workers, but not okay for immigrants to displace high-income workers in favour of low-income workers?

[Felch]

For the country losing the skilled worker, the effects are generally negative. However, it's been hypothesized that when the country in question is very poor relative to the country gaining the skilled worker, the prospect of "winning the lottery" (getting to work in a high-income country) causes much more human capital investment than would otherwise be the case, increasing welfare there as well.

The Economist had an article on this, where they pointed out that while America attracts a huge number of nurses from the Philippines, they don't have a nursing shortage because it's such a popular career choice. They also don't have a shortage of creepy middle aged American cult-leader pimps.