Economist Jeffrey A. Smith says there is a lot of nuance to consider when it comes to immigration and the economy.
“It would be good if we spent more time thinking about the dimensions of immigration policy, rather than just saying we want more or less immigration,” says Smith. “Saying we want more or less immigration is not actually all that helpful, but I think that’s a lot of the discussion right now.”
Smith is a professor and labor economist at the UW. He works in applied econometrics, developing methods for evaluating the effectiveness of government and social programs. He earned a doctorate at the University of Chicago and joined the UW in 2017 as the Paul T. Heyne Distinguished Chair in Economics. Smith is also the Richard A. Messe Chair in Applied Econometrics and has worked with the Institute for Research on Poverty, the La Follette School of Public Affairs, the Center for Demography and Ecology, and the Center for Financial Security. He is also the president of the Society of Labor Economists.
On January 20, 2026, Smith will join the UW Now Live to discuss the changing U.S. economy and how immigration policies affect our economic resilience and workforce.
My Chief Area of Expertise Is:
A lot of my work is in applied econometrics, studying methods for evaluating government programs or interventions, and a lot of my work has been on what the Europeans call active labor market programs. We call them employment and training programs in the U.S. I also have a line of work in higher education, studying the causal effects of the quality of the university or college you attend on your educational labor market outcomes.
On the UW Now Live, I’ll Talk About:
I’ll talk about two things. The first will be the cost and benefits of immigration. I’ll talk about the labor market effects of immigration, and I’ll talk a bit about immigration and crime, immigration and pay-as-you-go pension systems, and about immigrant entrepreneurship. Second, I’ll discuss immigration policy from a 30,000-foot level. A lot of the current discussion treats immigration policy as one-dimensional, but I think it’s more like five-dimensional.
If There’s One Thing Viewers Should Take Away, It’s:
The academic literature, taken as a whole, suggests that the benefits of immigration exceed the costs, on average. This doesn’t mean that immigration is a homogenous treatment; some locales have a big cost from it and some border places have a big cost from it. We haven’t done a good job of compensating the losers from this policy, but properly regulated immigration is, on average, a winner.
To Get Smart Fast, See:
The Congressional Budget Office produces economic and demographic-related reports.
The American Enterprise Institute, the Brookings Institution, the Cato Institute, and the Hoover Institution, specifically the J-P Conte Initiative on Immigration, are all think tanks that have done good work on immigration. The Journal of Economic Perspectives by the American Economic Association publishes evidence-based, accessible pieces aimed at policy audiences and students.
