IFP Roundup: H-1Bs, housing abundance, federal data collection, and more
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We’re also experimenting with a new format for our newsletter, including links to interesting work from other friends in the progress studies community. Let us know what you think!
🔗 Links from IFP
How to almost double the economic value of the H1-B program without even issuing more visas: What if instead of awarding H1-Bs using a lottery, we awarded them based on compensation (or almost anything other than chance)?
Senior Immigration Fellow Jeremy Neufeld FOIA'd the US government to obtain the data necessary to simulate different H-1B reform proposals and found the compensation-based approach would raise the value of the program by 88%.
See also his op-ed in the WSJ.
Congress could leverage the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) to incentivize big cities to adopt pro-housing policies: Non-Resident Senior Fellow Chris Elmendorf published a white paper with Sam Jacobson and the Niskanen Center’s Alex Armlovich showing how this could work.
“To retain LIHTC eligibility, big cities would have to accept limits on fees and price controls on new multifamily housing; review housing development proposals ‘ministerially,’ that is, just for compliance with objective standards; and allow reasonably dense housing to be built on commercial corridors.”
Federal data collection is underrated by everyone, including DOGE: Metascience Fellow Matt Esche and Senior Editor Santi Ruiz wrote a piece for Commonplace — a new publication from American Compass — with some pointers for better data collection.
“A focus on federal data collection can solve a few problems simultaneously. Paradoxically, it can reduce the administrative burden on citizens of providing the government with information on taxes or permits (by allowing cross-referencing and user research). Much of sociology and economics relies on the federal government as the only actor with the bird’s-eye view to collect relevant data. And most importantly, it can make the federal government much more responsive to the needs of its citizens.”
Why did skyscrapers become glass boxes? Senior Infrastructure Fellow Brian Potter answers the question on everyone’s mind in this week’s Construction Physics:
“Skyscrapers are designed by architects, but it’s the developer who conceives of the project, arranges the funding, hires the design team, and ultimately decides what the building will be. To me, the question isn’t ‘Why did architects embrace modernism?’ It’s ‘Why did real estate developers embrace modernism?’ Ultimately, it was economics (or at least perceived economics) that drove developers to embrace this style. Glass curtain wall buildings were cheaper to erect than their masonry predecessors, and they allowed developers to squeeze more rentable space from the same building footprint. Ornate, detailed exteriors were increasingly seen as something tenants didn’t particularly care about, making it harder to justify spending money on them. And once this style had taken hold, rational risk aversion encouraged developers and builders to keep using it.”
How to win an election against the communists: In a special edition of Statecraft, Santi interviews his dad — a seasoned policy and political hand with hemisphere-spanning experiences. He did everything from advising anti-communist political candidates in Nicaragua to working with a member of the US House on the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Commission.
“We start hearing that Jimmy Carter is doing a bit of shuttle diplomacy. He's over in the other bunker with Daniel Ortega, who was president of Nicaragua at the time — and he’s president again today, sadly. This is how circular things are in Latin America and in Nicaragua, specifically. Through that shuttle diplomacy, Carter got Violeta Chamorro to agree to let the Sandinistas keep control of the military and the intelligence apparatus, in exchange for them willingly giving up and transferring power to her. That was the deal Carter cut. It gave all of us a bad taste in our mouth. And to this day, I think it was a stain on his record.”
Where should permitting reform go from here? (And what did the Trump executive order on CEQ regulations just do?): Alec Stapp and Brian Potter discussed these questions and more on a panel about infrastructure permitting at AEI this week. You can view a recording of the event here.
🤝 Links from friends of IFP
The Economic Innovation Group (EIG) released a big new report on high-skilled immigration.
“High-skilled immigration is America’s not-so-secret weapon. Done right, high-skilled immigration policy can accelerate economic growth and innovation, cement American leadership in technologies critical to national security, and even reduce the nation’s fiscal deficit. Unfortunately, today’s high-skilled immigration system is not set up to advance these goals. But there is a better way.”
Nicholas Bagley, Zachary Liscow, and the Niskanen Center are hosting a “Law of Abundance” conference.
You can submit paper abstracts here.
Dean Ball and Tim Lee launched a new interview podcast called AI Summer.
Early guests include Jon Askonas, Nathan Lambert, Ajeya Cotra, and Sam Hammond.
Jacob Trefethen has five ideas for reforming science funding:
“1) Fund high-ambition proposals that have little or no preliminary data. 2) Less unpaid peer review, more accountable Program Officers. 3) Split off ARPA-H, protect its money, insulate from NIH processes. 4) Slash grant reporting requirements. 5) Fund Assistant Professors as Pls more + career track for talented non-Pl.”
Thomas Hochman also has some free ideas for budding policy wonks.
“The policy world has a strange way of misallocating attention. Major, systemic problems languish in obscurity for years; relatively minor issues attract armies of experts and millions in funding. As an economist friend once told me, there’s no efficient market for wonkery. This mismatch creates opportunity. There are whole areas of research out there just waiting for their champion.”
Jason Crawford wrote about how sci-fi can have drama without dystopia or doomerism.
“The opposite of dystopia isn’t utopia — which doesn’t exist. It’s ‘protopia’: a world that is always getting better, but is never perfect. Such a world always has new problems to solve, including some problems created by the old solutions. There is plenty of conflict and intrigue in such a world, and plenty of room for heroes and villains.”
👋 Tweet for the Road
This pertains to H-1B non-immigrant visas under the cap (limit) of 85,000 every year. Educational institutions and research facilities can request H-1B's all year long, these are uncapped. The problem is caused by US companies requesting foreign workers not for their education/skills/experience, but just because they can make money of them.
If a US company needs a worker for a short-term project - a few weeks or a few months - the H-1B could be a good solution. Currently there exists no visa for this type of situation! Remuneration should at least be twice the prevailing wage.
For other workers who are invited to assume a job in the US, a GREEN CARD should be issued. For the first two years this could be a Conditional Card. If all goes well, it can become a permanent visa. (Attention DOGE: think of all the savings if the unnecessary H-B issuance/re-issuance/extension/additional extension procedures are eliminated !)
The US should stop the non-immigrant alphabet soup that puts people and their families in a stressful situation, making them insecure about their future, for years. Thousands of rats are killed every year in research showing the effects of stress on the body and the mind. Concluding it is really bad. Yet well-meaning, hard-working, tax-paying, newcomers are exposed to a lot of it - unnecessarily.
And stop ruining the lives of about 100,000 well-educated women every year. Yes, hard to understand for mostly male "decision makers" - but we want, need, to work and earn too !
This, bytheway, mainly happens to workers from India. For European workers most companies have already found solution: one-year on a European location, then on to the US on a L-1 visa (not capped). And L-2 spouses are allowed to work.
Too bad we never see any progress here, thanks to a two-party system filled with cowardly people.