[HillaryBriss]

after it says in the absence of immigration, wages for US computer scientists would have been 2.6% to 5.1% higher in 2001 the NBER study's abstract continues US workers switch to other occupations, reducing the number of US born computer scientists by 6.1% to 10.8%

we can't really know the detailed impact of the immigration policy without also knowing how those occupation switchers fared. did they get jobs that paid the same, more or less? what were their new working conditions like? and, if their new careers are outside of STEM fields, would they have been better off majoring in something else in the first place?

it's possible that the economic efficiency gains of the corporations resulted in reduced efficiency in the individual lives of these job switchers. it's quite possible that these workers paid the price and corporations reaped the benefits.

anyway, economic, labor and immigration policy are determined by factors that go beyond corporate efficiency and profitability. and corporations advocate their own narrow interests, not just the interests of "the overall economy" or GDP maximization or some other umbrella. it seems reasonable that a sector's workers bear as little obligation to advocate for the "overall economy" as corporations bear.

workers who feel severely impacted by these changes are certainly free in a democracy to advocate for policies that benefit them. after all, that's precisely what corporations do. this is a political balancing act more than it is some sort of ethical argument.