The dynamics of immigration policy with wealth-heterogeneous immigrants

In this paper we consider a simple intertemporal economy in which immigrants, if admitted, bring heterogeneous amounts of capital. We show that under certain conditions there is a level of immigration which maximizes the economy's capital-labor ratio, and that this level of immigration is the preferred choice of a majority of the economy's citizens. We then characterize, in an overlapping generations setting, the dynamics of capital accumulation and immigration policy, which can include multiple steady state equilibria and a sensitivity of immigration levels to changes in the economy's technology growth rate.Emigration and immigration

American Prairie Reserve: Protecting Wildlife Habitat on a Grand Scale

The American Prairie Reserve (APR) is an ambitious private effort “to create the largest nature reserve in the continental United States, a refuge for people and wildlife preserved forever as part of America’s heritage.” To achieve this mission, APR must acquire title to hundreds of thousands of acres of private land while working closely with the federal and state agencies that manage public lands within and adjacent to the projected reserve. This effort has the potential to reestablish a population of as many as 10,000 bison that will help restore a prairie ecology over three and a half million acres once the Reserve reaches its intended size. APR is also controversial among many of the people who live in this sparsely populated region of Montana. How these issues might be resolved makes the American Prairie Reserve a useful case study of the potential role for markets in the future use and management of the vast grasslands administered by the BLM and the Forest Service

Public Land Policy Is Ripe for Change

18 pages