It is now well known that exogenous immigration shocks tend to have benign effects on native employment outcomes, thanks to various secondary adjustment processes made possible by flexible markets. One adjustment process that has received scant attention is that immigrants, as consumers of the...

The Economics of Immigration is written as a both a reference for researchers and as a textbook on the economics of immigration. It is aimed at two audiences: (1) researchers who are interested in learning more about how economists approach the study of human migration flows; and (2) graduate...

Tests for the presence of Leviathan, evidenced by a positive relationship between the size of government measured as a percentage of GDP, and the degree of fiscal centralization, have provided mixed results. We derive alternative measures of the size of government taking into account household...

The Economics of Immigration is written as a both a reference for researchers and as a textbook on the economics of immigration. It is aimed at two audiences: (1) researchers who are interested in learning more about how economists approach the study of human migration flows; and (2) graduate...

Numerous studies have concluded that immigration has very small effects on wages or unemployment, even when the immigration flow is very large. Three reasons suggested for this are that immigration: (1) is not supply-push, but may instead be driven by demand-pull factors; (2) is likely to cause...

In one of the most original papers published in <i>Challenge,</i> Hendrik Van den Berg and Matthew Van den Berg try to determine whether markets are really complete enough to make the invisible hand a relevant concept. They attempt to calculate what proportion of our transactions does qualify. Some...

The invisible hand metaphor dates to the 18th century but only gained prominence after neoclassical analysis came to dominate economic thinking late 19th century. Neoclassical economists rigorously established the assumptions necessary for an economy to operate in accordance with the metaphor,...

This paper offers a sociological explanation for why the field of economics has so severely restricted the scope of its analysis to the point where it failed to foresee the financial crises, economic recessions, and other large shifts in economic activity that have characterized the global...

Part I of this essay explained the sequence of events that enabled the neoclassical paradigm to regain its dominant position in mainstream economics following serious challenges by ‘Keynesian’ economists. This second essay seeks to answer the question of why the economics profession was so...

Economic thought evolved over the past two centuries to focus on individual behavior as the basis for all economic activity. Some heterodox economists have pointed to the importance of group behavior and the influence of organizations on economic activity, but the neoclassical paradigm, with the...