Hive Mind and Open Borders

Garett Jones’ new working paper on “Measuring the Sacrifice of Open Borders” has already received much attention.  Before I respond to it, though, let me recount The Story So Far.

1. About a decade ago, researchers such as Michael Clemens started using standard trade models to estimate the economic effects of open borders.  All such estimates were enormous, giving rise to slogans like “Open Borders: “The Efficient, Egalitarian, Libertarian, Utilitarian Way to Double World GDP.”

2. In 2015, my colleague Garett Jones published Hiv...