Immigration reform is once again on Washington's policy agenda. Serious attention is being given to policies that would place more emphasis on merit than on family ties, which are favored by much of the current US immigration system. One way to determine merit is a point-based system. This paper argues that auctioning off visas would be preferable to a point-based system. Auctions would promote economic growth, increase government revenue, and lead to a more efficient allocation of visas while reducing discretionary decision making by government officials. This paper outlines several proposals for how to implement visa auctions that could serve as a starting point for designing a better immigration policy. We recommend replacing the current system of employment-based temporary and permanent visas with an employer-centered auction in order to increase the economic gains from immigration.
We use cookies to provide you with an optimal website experience. This includes cookies that are necessary for the operation of the site as well as cookies that are only used for anonymous statistical purposes, for comfort settings or to display personalized content. You can decide for yourself which categories you want to allow. Please note that based on your settings, you may not be able to use all of the site's functions.
Cookie settings
These necessary cookies are required to activate the core functionality of the website. An opt-out from these technologies is not available.
In order to further improve our offer and our website, we collect anonymous data for statistics and analyses. With the help of these cookies we can, for example, determine the number of visitors and the effect of certain pages on our website and optimize our content.