Immigration and Technology

This is interesting:

As if the debate over immigration and guest worker programs wasn't complicated enough, now a couple of robots are rolling into the middle of it.

Vision Robotics, a San Diego company, is working on a pair of robots that would trundle through orchards plucking oranges, apples or other fruit from the trees. In a few years, troops of these machines could perform the tedious and labor-intensive task of fruit picking that currently employs thousands of migrant workers each season.

The robotic work has been funded entirely by agricultural associations, and pushed forward by the uncertainty surrounding the migrant labor force. Farmers are "very, very nervous about the availability and cost of labor in the near future," says Vision Robotics CEO Derek Morikawa.

...Previous attempts at making a mechanical harvester were thwarted by inefficiency, explains Morikawa...Morikawa says his engineers had their breakthrough idea right there in the orange grove. They realized that the task could be divided between two robots: One would locate all the oranges, and the second would pick them. "Once you know where all the fruit is, then it becomes an easy job to calculate the most efficient way to pick it all," says Morikawa.

But it wasn't just technological challenges that held back previous attempts at building a mechanical harvester –- politics got involved, too. Cesar Chavez, the legendary leader of the United Farm Workers, began a campaign against mechanization back in 1978.

Chavez was outraged that the federal government was funding research and development on agricultural machines, but not spending any money to aid the farm workers who would be displaced. In the '80s, that simmering anger merged with a growing realization that the technology was nowhere near ready, and government funding dried up.

This time around, growers' associations are funding the research.

Lots of good research questions. The availability of an almost limitless supply of low-wage labor in the agricultural industry must have encouraged growers to cut back on capital investments and choose labor-intensive methods of production. What would the world look like now if firms had been "encouraged" by the marketplace to make bigger investments in technology? What would the world look like 10 years from now if growers did not have access to vast quantities of guest workers? Which outcome is "better"?

Comments

[Adam]

Good post Dr. Borjas. I think it would greatly benefit the agricultural industry to stop relying on mass numbers of low-skilled workers. It would be interesting to see if such developments would help reduce incentives for that type of immigration.

[Richard A.]

The Japanese government is preventing the importation of cheap labor.

Could this be the future for Japanese labor?
http://world.honda.com/ASIMO/

Of course this source of labor would have nothing in the way of voting rights.

[Peter Schaeffer]

Professor Borjas,

There is considerable empirical data showing that an abundance of unskilled labor diminishes both productivity and innovation. For example, Slate has a post up by Tim Hartford ("What the history of the electric dynamo teaches about the future of the computer" http://www.slate.com/id/2167909/fr/flyout). A few quotes

"Paul David, an economic historian at Stanford, presented a brief, prescient research paper to the American Economic Association back in 1990, titled "The Dynamo and the Computer." Professor David's aim was to persuade economists that the history of the electric dynamo would tell them something about the ongoing information revolution."

"David showed that World War I, which led to immigration controls and choked off the supply of cheap but untrained immigrant workers, was one of the spurs to make these changes. U.S. productivity growth eventually leapt in the 1920s, four decades after the commercialization of electricity. Productivity growth rates in U.S. manufacturing in the 1920s were more than 5 percent per year, a rate that makes the "new economy" look laughable, at least for now."

Another source (“The Impact of Immigration on New Technology Adoption in U.S. Manufacturing” http://www.econ.utah.edu/~philips/soccer2/readings_files/Lewis%20The%20Impact%20of%20Immigration%20on%20New%20Technology%20Adoption%20in%20US%20Manufacturing%202005.pdf) states

“Using detailed plant- level data from the 1988 and 1993 Surveys of Manufacturing Technology, this paper examines the impact of skill mix in U.S. local labor markets on the use and adoption of automation technologies in manufacturing. The level of automation differs widely across U.S. metropolitan areas. In both 1988 and 1993, in markets with a higher relative availability of less skilled labor, comparable plants – even plants in the same narrow (4-digit SIC) industries – used systematically less automation. Moreover, between 1988 and 1993 plants in areas experiencing faster less-skilled relative labor supply growth adopted automation technology more slowly both overall and relative to expectations, and even de-adoption was not uncommon.”

Ethan Lewis wrote a paper (“How Did the Miami Labor Market Absorb the Mariel Immigrants?” http://www.philadelphiafed.org/files/wps/2004/wp04-3.pdf) with similar conclusions. From the abstract

“In addition, post-boatlift computer use at work was lower in Miami than other cities with similar levels of computer based employment before the event, even among non-Hispanic workers in the same detailed cells defined by industry, occupation and education. This suggests the boatlift induced Miami’s industries to employ more unskilled-intensive production technologies.”

Thank you

Peter Schaeffer

[kyledeb]

Outside of the economist's realm there has been some interesting commentary on the implications of this. I regularly read The Unapologetic Mexican and he's posted an article written by Farmer/Writer David Mas Masumoto:

Without labor, agriculture will mechanize the process as much as possible, substituting technology and capital for people on the land. This shift is not simply about the invention of a machine, but rather a dramatic change in how things are grown. It means rewarding plant breeders not for great flavor, but instead for fruit that works with machines.

I can imagine the ideal machined peaches of the future. Design them so they will simultaneously ripen. (My crews revisit a single tree four to five times, picking only what is ripe at the moment.) Breed a peach with a stem that snaps easily, so a tree can be shaken by a machine. Manufacture fruit that won't bruise when harvested, picked rock hard to survive a handless system.

But there is no technology that can replace the human touch without sacrificing good taste.

Sustainable and organic fruit farming demands constant attention and response to nature each season: Our systems are labor intensive. I need the human element on my farm.

Farming is an inexact science. There's an art to pruning and growing a perfect peach that requires years of practice and many hands. Without workers, I'll have no choice but to farm differently: The politics of undocumented immigrants can change the flavor on my farm.

But agriculture is morally wrong if the sole goal is to create a new pipeline of cheap labor. Farmers must acknowledge the value of the people in their fields.

Undocumented workers have labored like ghosts—invisible, hidden, secluded. Immigration reform would shed light on them, revealing their worth.

Agriculture has openly acknowledged the need for labor: We also must accept responsibility for these workers.

As these new Americans are recognized, wages, working conditions and health benefits must be addressed. This will challenge farmers and the old ways of doing business. Agriculture has openly acknowledged the need for labor: We also must accept responsibility for these workers.

I farm with a social contract—a network of honorable, mutually supporting relationships that contribute to the quality I seek. My work can't be done by machines. I want to grow "face food," produce with faces and their stories, keeping alive the legacy of good, authentic food.

Undocumented workers are part of this food system. We all have a stake in immigration reform, and the need to recognize the important role of all food workers. We need to support farming that contributes true flavors to life

[jmdesp]

Very interesting post, but I think you're providing ammunition to my previous comment about your view on welfare :
http://borjas.typepad.com/the_borjas_blog/2007/06/are_opponents_o.html#comment-72478084

If it's good for the economy to reduce the availability of low wage labor through immigration policy, why is it good to augment it through welfare policy ?

[Peter Schaeffer]

Kyledeb,

It is nice that you would like to continue doing business in the manner you find desirable. Perhaps the producers of hand-crafted clothes found the spinning loom equally threatening and offensive. However, let me ask you a few germane questions

1. Are you willing to pay for health care (public hospitals, Medicaid, Medicare, etc.) for your workers and their families? Of do you expect the government to do that for you?

2. Are you willing to pay for education for the children of your workers? Of do you expect the government to do that for you?

3. Are you willing to pay for housing for your workers and their families? Of do you expect the government to do that for you?

4. Are you willing to pay for food stamps for your workers and their families? Of do you expect the government to do that for you?

5. Are you willing to pay for retirement for your workers? Of do you expect the government to do that for you?

6. Are you willing to pay the social costs (crime, gridlock, failing schools, unaffordable housing, etc.) your workers impose on socieity? Of do you expect the government to do that for you?

I strongly suspect the answer is no in all cases. Of course, I would be pleasantly surprised in the answer is yes.

Robert Rector has demonstrated that each unskilled immigrant household costs the American taxpayer $19,588 per year (back in 2004, more now of course). See http://www.heritage.org/Research/Immigration/tst052107a.cfm for the details.

My questions for you are; Why do you think you are entitled to government handouts? Why do you think the government should subsidize your private business? What gives you the right to make the American people poorer?

Shouldn’t the market, without government subsidies, decide if cheaper machine picked fruits are better/worse than hand picked fruits?

[Sanches]

Many farmers already enjoy government subsidies and substantial market manipulation (dairy compacts, import controls, etc.) to give them artificially high prices. Now they demand the right to import a foreign workforce just to keep their wage costs under control. How about we at least make these farmers pick one or the other: price manipulation or cost manipulation?

Farmers are quickly turning into the new welfare queens in my book.