July 28, 2023 · Lindsay Owens, Groundwork Collaborative and Mike Kubzansky, Omidyar Network
During a breakout session at the latest Stanford PACS Philanthropy Innovation Summit, Mike Kubzansky shared a fact that elicited gasps in the room: The Penn Wharton Budget Model, one of the leading tools designed to provide policymakers with accurate analyses of the fiscal impact of various public policies, is based in part on the assumption that immigrant workers produce less than those born in America.
It was clear the math didn’t add up for many in the audience, who hailed from every corner of the globe and had built hugely successful companies and organizations, thanks in part, to the high productivity of immigrant workers. What Mike struck upon in that conversation was just a taste of the myriad hidden mechanisms in which macroeconomic modeling impacts all our lives, often in mind-bending ways.
To read the full opinion piece, visit: https://pacscenter.stanford.edu/philanthropy-innovation-summit/blog/the-faults-in-our-macro-models-and-how-to-fix-them/
