A world of free movement would be $78 trillion richer
Yes, it would be disruptive. But the potential gains are so vast that objectors could be bribed to let it happen
A HUNDRED-DOLLAR BILL is lying on the ground. An economist walks past it. A friend asks the economist: “Didn’t you see the money there?” The economist replies: “I thought I saw something, but I must have imagined it. If there had been $100 on the ground, someone would have picked it up.”
This article appeared in the The World If section of the print edition under the headline “The $78 trillion free lunch”
The World If
July 15th 2017- What a Macron miracle could do for France and Europe
- Suppose the Trump show runs and runs
- A world of free movement would be $78 trillion richer
- Disrupting the trust business
- Following a fiduciary rule
- Without governments, would countries have more inequality, or less?
- The British economy if the country crashes out of the European Union
- How the story of human cloning could unfold
- The disaster that could follow from a flash in the sky
- Reflections on the fine-structure constant
- KAL's cartoon: Weathering the weather
- Had the Ottoman Empire been saved rather than sunk
From the July 15th 2017 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents
Explore the edition
What if climate activists turn to terrorism?
Protesters against climate change have not resorted to terrorism to advance their cause. This scenario from 2031 imagines what would happen if they did
What if the Republicans pivoted on climate?
How an ambitious, conservative environmentalism came into being. An imagined scenario from 2024
What if mammoths are brought back from extinction?
Could recreating mammoths help curb global warming?
What if nuclear power had taken off in the 1970s?
How would the world look today if more countries had adopted nuclear power after the 1973 oil crisis? A look back on an alternative history from a rather different 2020
What if technology tracked all carbon emissions?
Could governments use smartphones to monitor citizens’ carbon emissions? An imagined scenario from 2030
What if carbon removal becomes the new Big Oil?
One giant industry emerges as another declines. An imagined scenario from 2050