The Importance of Learning English at a Young Age

Immigrants to the U.S. who do not speak English well tend to earn less. And their children might suffer, too. That’s the conclusion of some work summarized in the NY Times by Austan Goolsbee:

By comparing the outcomes of English-speaking and non-English-speaking immigrants who arrived in the United States around the critical period age, they [Bleakley and Chin] document that poor English skills meant less schooling and substantially lower wages for immigrants and that these disadvantages often extended to their children, even if those children were born in the United States.



One of their simplest demonstrations of this fact compares immigrants from different islands of the Caribbean. They document that the wages and education levels of immigrants from non-English speaking islands like the Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico look similar to those of immigrants from English-speaking islands like Jamaica and Trinidad — as long as the person originally came to the United States by age 11. For those who were older when they arrived, however, immigrants from non-English-speaking islands do significantly worse, on average, than those from English-speaking ones. Non-English speakers are much more likely to drop out of school and also have significantly lower-paying jobs when working. Their finding points strongly toward language as the deciding factor, since the differences exist only after age 11.



… In turns out that children whose immigrant parents came to the United States when young do just about the same in school regardless of whether the parents came from English-speaking or non-English-speaking countries. But the situation is different for children whose parents were older when they arrived. The children from non-English-speaking households do much worse than English-speaking ones. They are less likely to go to preschool and much more likely to drop out of high school.



When Professor Bleakley and Professor Chin compare the overall distribution of test scores of English- and non-English-speaking families, they find that the big differences appear mainly among children with the lowest performance. The top half of students from non-English-speaking households do just about as well as the top half from English-speaking households. It seems that a child with talent can succeed no matter what the parents’ skills are, as has been true for centuries in this country. But parents whose English is poor have a big negative impact on the below-average children.

The Bleakley-Chin study is available here.

Worshipping at the Altar of International Law

David Bernstein, writing at The Volokh Conspiracy, says,

I’ve noticed in a variety of contexts that there are some rather well-educated, articulate individuals out there who have what seems to me to be a fanatical, quasi-religious belief in “international law”, and the idea that it should trump any other conflicting consideration. In the constitutional law field, this is reflected in the argument that the president and the courts should ignore domestic law and the Constitution if they conflict with international law–even if the United States isn’t a party to any binding international agreements on the particular subject at hand.

He points out that people who use this argument are akin to the religious devotees who respond to every argument with, “Because God says so.”

I urge you to read the entire piece. Here’s an excerpt from his conclusion:

The point of this post is … to ask informed readers about when and how “international law” gained such cult-like status that well-educated people believe that merely invoking it (or their interpretation of it) is sufficient to settle even the most nuanced and contentious debates, that it should always trump domestic law, etc. … (Or is “international law” largely invoked to try to restrain the actions of the U.S. and Israel, but largely ignored more broadly?–e.g., I haven’t heard of any other nation’s besides Israel’s legitimacy being questioned because of past or even present real or imagined violations of international law.)

It might also be worth taking some time to browse through the comments there. Some are very insightful.



[h/t to BenS for the pointer]

The Bank of England: One Question

If you could ask the policy makers at The Bank of England just one question, what would it be?



Mine would be, “Why do you target interest rates if an overheated economy would drive up interest rates, requiring you to increase the supply of lendable funds, thus leading to an even hotter economy?” Maybe the answer is that they don’t really target interest rates.



My class is going on a field trip to the Bank of England tomorrow, and we have been assured that at one point we will have a chance to ask questions.

The Bank of England: One Question

If you could ask the policy makers at The Bank of England just one question, what would it be?



Mine would be, “Why do you target interest rates if an overheated economy would drive up interest rates, requiring you to increase the supply of lendable funds, thus leading to an even hotter economy?” Maybe the answer is that they don’t really target interest rates.



My class is going on a field trip to the Bank of England tomorrow, and we have been assured that at one point we will have a chance to ask questions.

Israel’s Mistake

Tom Hanna, in noting that Israel was poised to re-exert some semblance of law and order in Gaza (my words, not his) said that perhaps this time Israel will rectify its past mistakes:

[T]he mistake was and continues to be negotiating as though the Palestinians are a victorious army and not the perpetual losers of this conflict. Lasting peace will require lots of things, but one of the most important is going to be the realization by Palestinians and Israelis that any Israeli concessions are gifts granted by a magnanimous victor and not spoils won in a Palestinian victory. Whether Palestinians or Israelis will get that message and which group will get it first remains to be seen.

Israel’s Mistake

Tom Hanna, in noting that Israel was poised to re-exert some semblance of law and order in Gaza (my words, not his) said that perhaps this time Israel will rectify its past mistakes:

[T]he mistake was and continues to be negotiating as though the Palestinians are a victorious army and not the perpetual losers of this conflict. Lasting peace will require lots of things, but one of the most important is going to be the realization by Palestinians and Israelis that any Israeli concessions are gifts granted by a magnanimous victor and not spoils won in a Palestinian victory. Whether Palestinians or Israelis will get that message and which group will get it first remains to be seen.

Israel’s Mistake

Tom Hanna, in noting that Israel was poised to re-exert some semblance of law and order in Gaza (my words, not his) said that perhaps this time Israel will rectify its past mistakes:

[T]he mistake was and continues to be negotiating as though the Palestinians are a victorious army and not the perpetual losers of this conflict. Lasting peace will require lots of things, but one of the most important is going to be the realization by Palestinians and Israelis that any Israeli concessions are gifts granted by a magnanimous victor and not spoils won in a Palestinian victory. Whether Palestinians or Israelis will get that message and which group will get it first remains to be seen.

Aberdeen, Scotland, is Gray

Last weekend, due to some snafus at ScotRail, I ended up spending two hours in Aberdeen, Scotland. I was struck immediately by how gray the city is:







Even the High Street Starbucks in Aberdeen is gray:







And the Travelodge along the main drag is gray, too:







Wouldn’t you think there’d be some colour in some of the buildings’ facades?

Aberdeen, Scotland, is Gray

Last weekend, due to some snafus at ScotRail, I ended up spending two hours in Aberdeen, Scotland. I was struck immediately by how gray the city is:







Even the High Street Starbucks in Aberdeen is gray:







And the Travelodge along the main drag is gray, too:







Wouldn’t you think there’d be some colour in some of the buildings’ facades?

Capital – Labour Substitution at Wal-Mart

Wal-Marts and zillions of other businesses in Alberta are facing stiff competition from the oil patch in their attempts to hire unskilled and semi-skilled workers. With the price of oil booming, so is the demand for workers throughout the oil industry, but especially in and around the tar sands in Northern Alberta. Young people, especially, are declining to work for $10/hour at fast food establishments or in retail jobs when they can earn much more either in the oil industry or in support services for the oil industry.



The response has been two-fold.

1. Firms are recruiting even unskilled workers very agressively.
2. More interestingly for this item, firms are substituting capital for labour wherever possible.

In the case of Wal-Mart, one form of capital-labour substitution is the self-check-out. Because hiring labour and replacing those who quit is expensive, and because wage rates must rise to be attractive to those who have high opportunity costs (the opportunity of working in the oil patch), and because the cost of capital is comparatively low, the relative slope of the isocosts has changed. As a result, Wal-Mart is spending more on IT (information technology) specialists and on the machinery and equipment to operate self-serve check-outs and reducing the number of other employees they would otherwise have hired to operate the standard, old-time checkouts.