Baden-Württemberg Abitur Englisch LK 1999

Those setting the rules for immigration rarely have economics at the forefront of their thoughts. For better or worse, popular emotion usually looms² largest in politicians' deliberations³ - and in most developed countries, the most influential emotion in recent years has been: "keep them out".

Economists, in gereral, favour a liberal approach to immigration for the same reasons that lead them, by and large, to favour free international flows of capital and goods. Open capital markets allow investment to flow to where it can be used most productively. Free trade forces both individual firms and entire economies to concentrate on doing what they do most efficiently, squeezing out less productive activities. In theory, making migration easier should have similar effects, allowing a better matching of the supply of workers to the demand for them and enabling workers with particular skills to locate where mose can be best put to use.

But does this simple conclusion still hold when the availability of generous welfare handouts in wealthier countries is taken into account? If people are tempted to migrate by these non-labour-market factors, rather than by wage levels and job opportunities, it is conceivable that immigration might not increase efficiency. In that case, tighter controls might be justified.

America is the ideal laboratory for testing the economic impact of migration. More than 5m immigrants arrived during 1991-96 alone, and most Americans can still trace their familiy's arrival from abroad. America still has a fairly welcoming attitude to the world's huddled masses. But controls on immigration have become tougher in recent years, amid fears that immigrants are taking jobs from American citizens and imposing excessive costs on government. A new OECD⁴ survey of America's economy suggests that these fears are not justified. The OECD concludes that immigration is good, not bad, for America's economy.

Some studies have found that the wages and employment of natives (usually unskilled ones) fall when immigrant workers arrive. For example, a new analysis by Daniel Hamermesh. an economist at me University of Texas, finds that immigrants are not more likely to be working nights or to be injured on the job than white native-born workers, challenging the widespread notion that immigrants largely take jobs that natives do not want.

Immigration has a more significant effect on welfare spending. Foreign-born residents of America are 35 % more likely to receive public assistance than natives. In large part, this reflects me poor education, larger families and weak English-language skills of many immigrants. This trend has become more pronounced because the skill levels of immigrants, relative to those of natives, are declining. Immigrants, on average, also pay 32 % less in tax during their lifetimes than natives do.

At first glance, such numbers support a tougher attitude towards immigrants - such as recent moves in America to restrict their eligibility for welfare. But they do not tell the full story. Although an average immigrant is a net drain of America's government finances during his own lifetime, the overall impact of his arrival on the public purse is actually positive. That is because the children of immigrants, on average, pay far more to the state in taxes than they take from it.

This effect is slow to come. It requires 40 years after an immigrant enters the country, the OECD calculates, before governments' financial gain outweighs the cost.

551 words Adapted from: The Economist, 29 November 1997

Annotations:

1 huddled masses (title):here: immigrants

2 looms (2):appears

3 deliberations (3):considerations

4 OECD (23):Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development

Twenty years ago, when only the tadpole¹ had been cloned, bioethicists raised the possibility that scientists might someday advance the technology to include human beings as well. They wanted the issue discussed. But scientists assailed the moralists concerns as alarmist. Let the research, go. forward, the scientists argued, because cloning human . beings would ,se.rye no dicernible scientific purpose. Now the cloning of humans is within reach and society as a whole is caught with its pants down. Today the sheep - tomorrow the shepherd? Whether the cloning of human beings can be ethically justified is now firmly, perhaps permanently, on the nation's moral agenda.

The government could prohibit the cloning of human beings or issue regulations limiting what researchers can do. But the government cannot control the actions of individuals or private groups determined to clone humans for whatever purpose. "In science, the one rule is that what can be done will be done," warns Rabbi Moses Tendler, professor of medical ethics at Yeshiva Universitiy in New York.

Some ethicists regard the cloning of humans as inherently evil, a morally unjustifiable intrusion into human life. Others measure the morality of any act by the intention behind it.193 words

adapted from: Newsweek, 3 March 1997

Wortangabe:

1 tadpole (1)Kaulquappe