Unanimous constitutional consent and the immigration problem

Abstract

REPORT DOCUMENTATION PAGEForm Approved OMB Public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information. Send comments regarding this burderesTmate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing this burden to Washington Headquarters Services, Directorate for Informati,-s Operations and Reports, 1215 Jefferson Davis Highway, Suite 1204, Arlington, VA 22202-4302, and to the Office of Management and Bud et, This paper utilizes the cross-cutting cleavages approach to evaluate the probability of a unanimous constitutional consent and, based on these results, discusses the implications of immigration on an existing constitutional consent. It is shown that previous conclusions of beneficial effects stemming from a multitude of political dimensions for a unanimous constitutional consent crucially depend on the assumption of an extreme mode of intrapersonal compensation of constitutional majority and minority preferences. These conclusions are reversed once you consider more restrictive schemes of such intrapersonal compensation. Since, furthermore, the probability of constitutional consent unambiguously falls with a growing size of the collectivity, only a policy of selective and controlled immigration will be able to guarantee with regard to the existing cleavages of a society that the existing constitutional consent will not be damaged or destroyed, whereas uncontrolled immigration, possibly based on ethical norms, will risk the breakdown of any constitutional consent in a society. Abstract. This paper utilizes the cross-cutting cleavages approach to evaluate the probability of a unanimous constitutional consent and, based on these results, discusses the implications of immigration on an existing constitutional consent. It is shown that previous conclusions of beneficial effects stemming from a multitude of political dimensions for a unanimous constitutional consent crucially depend on the assumption of an extreme mode of intrapersonal compensation of constitutional majority and minority preferences. These conclusions are reversed once you consider more restrictive schemes of such intrapersonal compensation. Since, furthermore, the probability of constitutional consent unambiguously falls with a growing size of the collectivity, only a policy of selective and controlled immigration will be able to guarantee with regard to the existing cleavages of a society that the existing constitutional consent will not be damaged or destroyed, whereas uncontrolled immigration, possibly based on ethical norms, will risk the breakdown of any constitutional consent in a society.JEL Classification: H10, H41, K10.* We gratefully acknowledge helpful comments from Johannes Hackmann (Hamburg), Tobias Just (Frankfurt), Guy Kirsch (Fribourg) and an anonymous referee, and like...

Coyote ugly: the deadweight cost of rent seeking for immigration policy

“…The political economy literature has examined how immigration will affect income redistribution (Mayr 2007), how it will impact constitutional consent (Josten and Zimmermann 2005), and how fiscal spending can influence immigration in an open labor market such as the one between many EU countries (Thum 2004). But most of the literature uses median voter or interest group models to explain why particular immigration policies are adopted.…”