“What the government would do is set a price, and the price would be determined by how many people they would like to admit, and then they would allow everyone to come in who could pay that price, aside from obvious exceptions like terrorists,” he told The Daily Telegraph before delivering the 19th Institute of Economic Affairs Annual Hayek Memorial Lecture in London.
The American economist said that as well as being a revenue raiser for governments at a time of record deficits, the policy would ensure that only the most productive and committed immigrants were attracted, at a time when the present system was not working in countries including the UK and the US.
“If you were just coming temporarily it wouldn’t be worth paying the price, so you’d get people committed to becoming British, or an American, or whatever it may be.”
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