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Daniel Di Martino is a PhD candidate in Economics at Columbia University and a graduate fellow at the Manhattan Institute—where he focuses on high-skill immigration policy. He also founded the Dissident Project to teach high school students about the evils of socialist regimes.

Today we talk about his life in Venezuela and the economic realities he faced growing up, particularly inflation and shortages. He explains how poor institutions, even democratically elected ones, can turn a trusting and prosperous society into a mistrusting and thieving one. (Watch out ladies, they’ll even steal the hair from your head). We talk about the incentives involved in immigration policy and the immigration situation in places like New York City and Miami today.


Want to explore more?

• Bruce Bueno de Mesquita on Democracies and Dictatorship, an EconTalk podcast.
• Simeon Djankov and Matt Warner on the Doing Business Report and Development Aid, an EconTalk podcast.
• Jim Epstein on Bitcoin, the Blockchain, and Freedom in Latin America, an EconTalk podcast.
• Edward Lopez, Socialism From the Bottom Up, a review of Powell and Lawson's Socialism Sucks, at Econlib.
• Stan Veuger on the Dutch Farmer Protests and Cannabis Legalization, a Great Antidote podcast.

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