Canada's case was a success story and may be currently a success story but it may not be heading towards continued success. Static capacity no I agree Canada is big and welcoming and over 90% of the land is owned by the state and to which it has no intention of liberalizing. Dynamic capacity in the short run, I think Canada may have reac…
Canada's case was a success story and may be currently a success story but it may not be heading towards continued success. Static capacity no I agree Canada is big and welcoming and over 90% of the land is owned by the state and to which it has no intention of liberalizing. Dynamic capacity in the short run, I think Canada may have reached capacity. It definitely has politically. In the Canadian context it may mean we don't take in 1.2million people only 500K or 350K. There is only one political party in Canada that wants a immigration moratorium and they poll at less than 3%. Those Canadians who already have homes are benefiting from immigration but new comers and people starting out can't afford housing in the most dynamic markets. The markets where innovation happens. That is part of the trap. Immigrants are needed to bolster home prices. People starting out and the newcomers are robbed of innovative and productive capacity because more of it goes into their housing than their businesses. Capital dollars don't risk, at the margin, innovative ideas when real estate has a less risky return at the same rate or even a higher rate of return. Canada's population grows while innovation lags. No, I don't want talent trapped in Canada. Almost all Canadian Nobel Prize winners did their work outside of Canada including David Card. That is my point. Canada may be a trap and may be heading towards a worse equilibrium. Innovation can't grow with increasing population in Canada because Canada may be nearing a low level equilibrium tipping point or is already in one. The selection effects of Canada's current system may mean that those who are the most innovative and entrepreneurial of Canadians and new comers have to leave Canada. This is without immigrants being a drag on the welfare state and to which immigration policy is one of many inputs into multiple equilibrium some of which are undesirable. An unintended consequence of an overly optimistic immigration policy was to exacerbate weaknesses in the Canadian system to which no attention has been paid. Instead of sorting out why we can't have more people coming here. We instead head toward the heuristic solution of anti-foreign bias which may not solve the problem but is the easiest to coordinate. Canadians are fighting around the immigration levels because there are those who think it is the problem, there are those who want it to be a distraction and because no one has the political capital to implement better ideas that allow for Canadian and immigrants to achieve a virtuous cycle of growth. Immigration is not zero sum game but in the Canadian context it may be heading towards zero marginal growth.
Canada's case was a success story and may be currently a success story but it may not be heading towards continued success. Static capacity no I agree Canada is big and welcoming and over 90% of the land is owned by the state and to which it has no intention of liberalizing. Dynamic capacity in the short run, I think Canada may have reached capacity. It definitely has politically. In the Canadian context it may mean we don't take in 1.2million people only 500K or 350K. There is only one political party in Canada that wants a immigration moratorium and they poll at less than 3%. Those Canadians who already have homes are benefiting from immigration but new comers and people starting out can't afford housing in the most dynamic markets. The markets where innovation happens. That is part of the trap. Immigrants are needed to bolster home prices. People starting out and the newcomers are robbed of innovative and productive capacity because more of it goes into their housing than their businesses. Capital dollars don't risk, at the margin, innovative ideas when real estate has a less risky return at the same rate or even a higher rate of return. Canada's population grows while innovation lags. No, I don't want talent trapped in Canada. Almost all Canadian Nobel Prize winners did their work outside of Canada including David Card. That is my point. Canada may be a trap and may be heading towards a worse equilibrium. Innovation can't grow with increasing population in Canada because Canada may be nearing a low level equilibrium tipping point or is already in one. The selection effects of Canada's current system may mean that those who are the most innovative and entrepreneurial of Canadians and new comers have to leave Canada. This is without immigrants being a drag on the welfare state and to which immigration policy is one of many inputs into multiple equilibrium some of which are undesirable. An unintended consequence of an overly optimistic immigration policy was to exacerbate weaknesses in the Canadian system to which no attention has been paid. Instead of sorting out why we can't have more people coming here. We instead head toward the heuristic solution of anti-foreign bias which may not solve the problem but is the easiest to coordinate. Canadians are fighting around the immigration levels because there are those who think it is the problem, there are those who want it to be a distraction and because no one has the political capital to implement better ideas that allow for Canadian and immigrants to achieve a virtuous cycle of growth. Immigration is not zero sum game but in the Canadian context it may be heading towards zero marginal growth.