"Now is a difficult time for migration reform. Political debates have become polarized in many coun- tries, at all levels of income. Tensions within the international community increased following the 2022

Russian invasion of Ukraine. The global economic outlook remains uncertain. Yet reforms are needed urgently. Difficult debates lie ahead, but they cannot be avoided or delayed if the gains from migration are to be realized."

The political polarization referenced here can be clearly shown across the spectrum of U.S. politics and most evidently between Kamala Harris's and Donald Trump's campaigns. Trump would argue that the reform needed would work to reduce immigration, while Harris would argue the opposite. There are many differing views on why this is the case, some believing it to be for political reasons, and others ethical. Regardless, the polarity of this situation is as evident as ever, so much discussion will be needed on the topic of reform to come up with a cohesive method of reforming migration into the United States before deciding on any major policy action.

"For all, favorable outcomes depend on migrants’ individual characteristics,"

are there different trends for such good/bad characteristics depending on which countries the immigrants are from, or does it vary greatly within the country of emigration as well?

"c. Nigeria will remain young well through the middle of the century"

It looks as though there are many different trends in each of these countries. In Italy it seems that there are now less younger people and more older people, possibly indicating that younger people are emigrating out of italy. However, in Nigeria, there has not been much of a difference in that "pyramid" trend, aside from the fact that the pyramid has gotten much wider (i.e. more people in general).

"Migration is necessary for all countries"

This is quite a broad claim because it may not be entirely neccesary or entirely positive for countries. However, as highlighted in the article below by the George W. Bush Institute, "Immigration fuels the economy. When immigrants enter the labor force, they increase the productive capacity of the economy and raise GDP. Their incomes rise, but so do those of natives."

Source: https://www.bushcenter.org/catalyst/north-american-century/benefits-of-immigration-outweigh-costs#:~:text=Why%20we%20need%20immigration,so%20do%20those%20of%20natives.

This would support the argument that migration is very important, but still, is it really necessary?

"country. Migrants differ by their reasons to move, their skills and demographic char- acteristics, their legal statuses, and their circumstances and prospects."

Most of the time I think that this would be the case: migration for better economic status. I wonder, however, if when some people migrate they get lower pay due to stigma against migrants in the workforce.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7722998/

Examples of policy changes that actually did occur after COVID-19: Strengthened Pandemic Preparedness Vaccine Development and Distribution Telemedicine Expansion Stimulus and Relief Packages Workplace Flexibility Social Welfare Expansion Remote Learning and Digital Education Travel Restrictions and Health Screenings Supply Chain Resilience Environmental and Sustainability Initiatives Data Privacy and Cybersecurity Enhancements Public Health Infrastructure Investment Mental Health Support Programs Housing and Rent Control Measures

Are these the dominating companies in the capitalist part of the world or merely in the whole world itself? I wonder what the communist side of the world would say about this in terms of supply chains. I am quite sure that they depend on each each other more than they do on us. Henceforth, wouldn't they also have some sort of dominating companies? Would the world also be better off if we centralized the production of such things around the world or is it better to diversify? (We are sort of in the middle of both of those).

These supply chains are essentially hyper-efficient. However, that also means that if anything slows down or goes wrong, the entire chain is disrupted, along with the nations in its system.

There are also other ways in which the globalized economy of the world is fragile. As highlighted in the following article (, conflicts and mistrust between nations. This creates another kind of fragility between countries when they are pointed against one another, instead of against a virus (as in this case).

It seems as though there are downsides to globalization then. Clearly, countries being interdependent on each other is not always a good thing as shown here. I wonder if war is also a reason that interdependence is not a good idea.

I wonder if they have kept in mind the costs of eliminating climate change to the working population as well here. Since, in my opinion, those costs are hefty enough even decrease the estimated wealth of people in a century from now.

This makes sense since then the money is not flowing out of the public, it is merely being transferred from large corporations to households. This way, the large corporations make less carbon emissions, and the households get more money from the government.

With rising costs of living today we should also keep in mind that many of the world's poorest people rely on income from large oil drilling firms or other factories that pollute the environment with carbon. By imposing a carbon tax, the MR of each good will fall, thereby, decreasing the MRP and the number of workers. This will cause mass unemployment which in itself is also disastrous for the world.

https://www.schroders.com/en/global/individual/ According to the article above, climate change, despite seemingly only having long-term negative effects on the economy, has already begun catalyzing destructive wether conditions, greatly costing the economy and, therefore, posing climate change as a major current negative externality.

There will always be benefits and costs to this. If global warming, at the moment, is not causing major costs then it may seem like a problem to deal with later. However, in my opinion, these major effects will be seen much later.

I wonder if this is a big change since industrial times or if it is similar to the change in temperature 100 years preceding such times as well.

This ties back to what I mentioned earlier about poorer people having less time to think and make more deliberative decisions. However, I wonder at what threshold this trend starts top deviate: In other words, at what level of income do people begin once more to have less time and capacity to make deliberative decisions?

This may apply for poorer people trying to apply to university. They may believe that since poorer people are stereotyped to be "less intelligent", they themselves do not have much of a chance at admission.

Can these social factors be influenced by what the media and news proport online or only what others see their peers do in the real world?

This idea of complete information to make better decisions is key in economics since a lot of the time we assume it to be true when in many places it is not. Therefore, merely presenting things (such as this loan) differently can allow people to understand the bigger picture and the information better and then make better decisions.

Question: Is there a sort of bell curve for ways of thinking? For example, poorer people do not have much time or energy to make deliberative decisions since they are running many jobs at once, while really rich people who are running many businesses (eg: Elon Musk) may also be lacking on time. Nevertheless, do those in the middle, people with single income flows but are earning well, make the most deliberative decisions? If not, what average income rate is that at which people generally make the most deliberative decisions?

Essentially, now that we understand that people make automatic decisions a lot of the time, we now know that we should target influencing such automatic decisions if we want to "nudge" individuals to make certain decisions.

This ties back to what we discussed before about the poor. Since they have more jobs, need to migrate, and are working low salary jobs, their minds are scrambled and stressed for a lot of the time. Therefore, they may tend to make more decisions using their "Automatic System" while those in higher economic classes have gone through better education and (generally) have single income flows. This makes their lives more simplified and allows them to make more deicions using their Deliberative System.

This is a key example of "Present Bias". These people state that they "live for today"; therefore, they are more likely to make a decision that benefits them a bit today than one that benefits them more tomorrow.

Here is a prime example of a nudge to get people to save more. Such nudges are of very little cost to either party (the "nudger" or the "nudged") but have significant outcomes, economically, for those "nudged".

I do wonder though, what did some of the world's most economically successful people do to break free of this cycle of "thinking socially". Did they merely get lucky? I find that quite hard to believe. My question: *What caused them (people now financially successful but from poor backgrounds) to deviate from the choices taken and path made by those around them?

Poorer people will generally be around other poor people. This will mean that they will make similar decisions to those around them due to the social influence of their peers (peer pressure). Therefore, this is another example of how being poor (and around other poor people) influences individual's decisions.

This relates to topic 1: How Poverty Impacts Individual Economic Choices since poorer people, as discussed in class, generally have many jobs and migrate a lot. This puts them in a situation where they do not have as much mental capacity or time to be contemplating deeply on decisions. This may cause them to make more "automatic" decisions, as this text highlights.

This is similar to what we discussed in class to be called a "nudge". Another example of this could be to allow farmers to pay for their children's education after harvesting season is over. Hence, they are in lower stress periods and will most likely make more rational and less emotional/instinctive decisions about their children's education.

https://acceleratemanagementschool.co.za/business-management/the-science-of-decision-making-rationality-vs-intuition/

This is the link to an article about how cognitive bias and intuition come into play when we make decisions, highlighting how it is not simply all down to rationality and reason.