Open Trade Closed Borders Summary

The article “Open Trade, Closed Borders,” by Margaret Peters focuses on the many interactions between immigration policy and trade policy; in doing this Peters addresses multiple research questions. The overarching question that she is trying to solve is what causes variation in any given country’s policy on immigration? She specifically focuses on the immigration of low-skill workers in all of her examples in order to simplify the question. Other questions she asks are why do we not see open trade and open immigration at the same time, what happens if the changes in trade policies are not caused by outside factors, can trade affect immigration, can immigration drive trade policies, why is every sample country used in this research more restrictive today than before when it comes to immigration, and what are some other explanations for policies regarding immigration? All of the

So it is possible that policymakers could be convinced to either open or close trade regardless of the possible ramifications due to contributions that may or may not make up for the possible losses that will be incurred. However, if it is immigration affecting trade policy they should not be considered substitutes, but they should be complements or hold no statistically significant correlation. The examples given; however, show that they are in fact used a substitutes, economically and politically, which rules out the option that immigration is the leading policy that affects trade policy. Closure of trade stances lead to higher wages for low-skill laborers, that then leads to firms encouraging immigration in order to decrease losses they incur from loss of profit due to the higher wages. The next section that Peters addresses is why there is more restriction concerning immigration all around the board despite many differences in border regulation, recruitment,