Immigration and the economics of 'Silos': An anthology of empirical analyses with US datasets

Abstract

Western liberal democracies have recently been engaged in an intense debate about the 'failure' of multiculturalism. It has been argued that public funding for multiculturalism provides incentives for some migrant communities to remain isolated within their existing social groups thereby creating 'silos'. And that, as immigrants become increasingly disconnected from the wider society or country in which they reside, these 'silo' communities are breeding grounds for social unrest. The emerging paradigm shift in immigration policy across the globe promotes the idea of abandoning multiculturalism in favour of 'integration' and the associated prioritisation of host culture. The policy debates, however, lack the focus on economic rationale for 'integration'. Our investigation attempts to fill this gap by developing econometric modelis)to evaluate the aggregate economic outcomes of two social (/non-economic) variables, linguistic isolation and social segregation across two geographic units, US metropolitan areas and US states.