Wes Hartmann
The John G. McCoy-Banc One
Professor of Marketing
Stanford Graduate School of Business
American Economies Thriving with the Foreign Born (in LEGO)
Click here for larger. Thanks for photo by Constance Chu. Started with this layout.
Some deformities caused by trying to use as many LEGO scraps as possible.
- I recently built this LEGO with my kids: constructing each state's height proportional to the size of its economy.
- The colored blocks represent the fraction of foreign born people in the state.
- Topped in Blue: Greater than 20% foreign born, Red: 10 to 20%, White, less than 10%
- This is based on the 2010 Census and only includes the continental US.
- I do not know how much of the relationship is causal, but I respect those who have migrated away from their homes to build a better life for themselves and the rest of us.
- This is dedicated to
- My 1/4 foreign-born family, which would not exist without my wife having left her family in India to pursue studies and a career in higher education in California. She is now a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School
- My foreign-born colleagues who I often join at a lunch table representing 3 continents.
- My foreign-born colleagues in my hotel job in college.
- My grandfathers who fought in Germany and Japan then migrated from Iowa and Arizona to California where my parents met.
- The Hartmanns who brought a family of 9 from beautiful rolling hills in Germany in the late 1800s to Iowa to eventually start a family dairy.
- And to my best friends who are foreign-born, the many more foreign-born people working hard all over the world, and the families whose sacrifices reduce geographic constraints on the efficiency of labor markets.
- May the California economy, the American economy and many others continue to welcome immigrants and thrive with native and foreign born people together.
- Why do this? Teaching my kids about globalization, what is great about America, and stats other than HR, RBI, OPS, K, WHIP, WAR, PTS REB, AST
