Whether they see immigration as a good thing or a scourge, Americans like to think of their country as an immigrant-friendly place, with borders that are among the most open in the world.

But that’s not the case, according to a new comprehensive measure developed by the British Council and the Brussels-based Migration Policy Group. The Migration Integration Policy Index (MIPEX) rates the EU nations’ (plus Norway, Switzerland, Canada, and the U.S.—31 countries in all) efforts to integrate immigrants according to 148 policy indicators, which range from opportunities for education and political participation to levels of protection against discrimination, from prospects for reuniting with family to the likelihood of achieving permanent residence status and citizenship.

For those keeping score, Sweden ranked first, Portugal second, and Canada third. The U.S. was ninth! The map below shows the scores for the 31 countries measured by the Index.

This new Index is an important advance in the way we measure openness to immigrants.  Previous studies, including my own previous work on the subject, for example in The Flight of the Creative Class, gauge openness or tolerance by measuring the share of immigrants in the general population, or more commonly, with reference to surveys of attitudes toward immigrants, racial and ethnic minorities, or other excluded groups.  The MIPEX measures something different and deeper – the degree to which nations successfully integrate and proactively include immigrants.  Still it is closely correlated with those other measures of openness and tolerance, such as Gallup surveys which measure openness to ethnic and racial minorities (.66) and to gays and lesbians (.68).

It’s about more than generosity and big-heartedness. Immigrants are in fact key to economic growth and development, especially in our high-tech industries. Immigrants “have started 52% of Silicon Valley’s technology companies and contributed to more than 25% of our global patents, according to Vivek Wadhwa, who has extensively studied the subject. “They make up 24% of the U.S. science and engineering workforce holding bachelor’s degrees and 47% of science and engineering workers who have PhDs.” This is what venture capitalist John Doerr was talking about when he told an interviewer at the Web 2.0 Summit that America should “staple a green card to the diploma” of any immigrant who gets a degree in engineering.

In that spirit, I asked my colleague Charlotta Mellander to compare the MIPEX scores to a variety of other measures that have been seen to have a strong bearing on prosperity:  economic output, innovation, entrepreneurship, and the broader happiness of nations   With our usual caveat that our analysis only points to associations between variables, that we do not make any claims about causation, these scatter charts tell an intriguing story.

Nations that are more accepting of and better at integrating new immigrants have a higher level of economic growth and development. The MIPEX is closely correlated to a common measure of economic development – the level of GDP per capita (.5). The MIPEX is also closely correlated with the UN’s comprehensive measure of overall economic, social and human development – the  Human Development Index (.56).

Nations that are more immigrant-friendly have higher levels of overall economic competitiveness. The MIPEX is closely correlated to the Global Competitiveness Index developed by Harvard Professor Michael Porter and the World Economic Forum (.48).

Innovation is the underlying engine of economic development. And countries that are better at integrating immigrants are also more innovative. The MIPEX is closely correlated with the rate of patenting (.53)

The ability of countries to integrate immigrants translates into higher rates of entrepreneurship as well.  The MIPEX is closely correlated with a comprehensive measure of entrepreneurial activity – the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor developed by Zoltan Acs and his collaborators (. 45).

So much for economic growth and development: But what about happiness and life satisfaction? Turns out, there is a close connection between the ability to integrate immigrants and the happiness of nations, too. The MIPEX and the Gallup World Poll’s measures of happiness are closely correlated (.47).

Americans like think of their country as the world’s great melting pot.  But this new immigration index and our analysis suggest that that’s no longer an assumption that can be taken for granted.

While America’s pundits and politicians obsess over the alleged social costs of illegal immigration, they should be worried that we may not always be the premier destination for legal immigrants, who bring the skills, energy and ambition that provide so much of the punch for the twin engines of innovation and entrepreneurship.  As Scott Page wrote in The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms,  Schools, and Societies, “When we meet people who think differently than we do, who speak different languages, who have different experiences, training, and values, we should see opportunity and possibility. We should recognize that a talented ‘I’ and a talented ‘they’ can become an even more talented ‘we.’”

Nations that welcome the best and most diverse talent win, while those that close their borders to it fall further and further behind. The ability not just to attract immigrants but to integrate and effectively harness their skills is a key axis of global economic success, now and even more so in the future.

But are the same factors at work today as they were in past revolutionary surges? Some are undoubtedly similar – throngs of disgruntled people have taken to the streets, questing for freedom and economic opportunity.  Others, like the use of social media from YouTube to Facebook and Twitter, are undoubtedly new and different.  Do the unfolding events of 2011 fit with our existing understanding of revolution or might they warrant updating?

By far the most influential and infamous account of revolution comes from Karl Marx. In The Communist Manifesto, authored with his benefactor and collaborator Frederich Engels and published in the real 1848, Marx argued that that revolutions are an inevitable and necessary outgrowth of economic development.  The rise of industry and of an emergent capitalist class upended the old feudal order while ushering in a new more dynamic but inherently unstable capitalist system. As the capitalist class rises to new heights, Marx wrote, the working class is simultaneously expanded and immiserated, sowing the seeds of the next revolutionary impulse and its own demise.

Revolution = size of working class, exploitation of working class, working class consciousness and organization  (working class papers, trade unions, labor parties).

Many alternative accounts of revolution have been proposed since Marx’s day. In nations where capitalism emerged early, the rising bourgeoisie was able to secure a power base independent of the aristocracy and usher in a process of gradual democratization, according to Barrington Moore classic, The Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. Countries whose economies developed later were more likely to undergo abrupt transformations. Students played a key role in the revolutionary uprisings of 1968; the same era saw the rise of the civil rights movement in the United States and of the women’s and gay liberation, environmental, and anti-war movements in the advanced nations.  These “new social movements” came to be seen a new driving force behind political activism.

The uprisings of 2011 however owe much of their impetus to the working class and labor movements as well as young people and students, according to the Middle East expert Juan Cole. Rising unemployment rates, stagnant wages and falling living standards prompted blue-collar workers to return to the barricades.

But a new generation of techies, social media types, and digitally savvy professionals have also played a visibly important role. Wael Ghonim, the Google executive who became the public face of Egypt’s uprising, is the veritable archetype of this Creative Class, spanning science, technology and engineering professionals, management and business executives, doctors, health care professionals and lawyers, as well as arts, culture and media workers.  In an emotional interview recorded immediately after his release from detention, Ghonim pointed explicitly to the role that Facebook and YouTube music videos played in Mubarak’s ouster. “We’re the youth who loves Egypt,” he declared, “And we did this because we love Egypt.” Intellectuals and artists as well as students have long participated in revolutionary movements, but usually in subsidiary roles. This time creative class members are part of the vanguard.

In identifying the creative class role, I do not intend to diminish the role of unions and various other political, religious and social movements that have driven this and other seasons of revolution. I simply aim to call attention to this key factor that has become increasingly salient to the surge of revolutionary activity occurring today.

Using data from the International Labor Organization, the map below charts the percentage of the workforce in the creative class in the Middle East and around the world.

The highest percentages of the creative class –in the range of 40 to 45 percent – are found in wealthy, advanced nations like the Netherlands, Singapore, Australia, Scandinavia, Belgium, Germany, the United Kingdom and Canada.  Egypt’s creative class comprises roughly a third (33.1%) of its workforce, on par with the United States (34.8%). Only Israel – where the creative class makes up 40 percent of the workforce – has a higher creative class share in the Middle East.  The creative class looms larger than one might expect, numbering one in five workers in Saudi Arabia (23.2%), the United Arab Emirates (UAE) (22%), Qatar (21.8%), Syria (21.8%) and Algeria (21.4%). These levels are higher than in the rapidly growing nation of Brazil (18.4%) and roughly triple that of China (7.4%), the world’s second largest economy.

Not all countries collect and report data on their creative class and other workforce categories. These figures are lacking for Iraq, Lebanon, Tunisia, Libya, and Kuwait in the Middle East, as well as several dozen other countries in the rest of the world.  So I also use another closely related measure that is more systematically available for a larger group of nations – the level of human capital – the percentage of the young adults engaged in post-secondary or “tertiary” education. This measure is closely related to creative class workforce (with a substantial statistical correlation of .75).

The map above shows the human capital levels for the Middle East and the world. The top ranked nations on this measure – Korea, Finland, the US, Sweden, Norway, New Zealand, and, perhaps surprisingly, Greece – have more than 75 percent of their young adults enrolled in tertiary education. For advanced nations like the United Kingdom, Canada, the Netherlands, France, Italy and Japan the figure is 55 to 60 percent. Israel is the highest ranked Middle Eastern nation on this measure (57%).  But several other Middle Eastern nations are also quite high, notably Libya (53%) and Lebanon (49%). Tertiary enrollment levels are higher in the West Bank (38%) and Jordan (35%) than they are in Hong Kong (34%). And tertiary enrollment levels are above 25% in Bahrain (31%), Egypt (29%), Tunisia (28%), and Saudi Arabia (27%).  Tertiary enrollment in Iran (24%) and the UAE (23%) are roughly the same as Brazil (23%).

Typically, creative class and human capital levels are very closely associated with economic development. Nations with substantial creative class shares and levels of high human capital tend to be among the richest in the world. But for many Middle East nations, the standard of living is lower than their creative class and human capital levels would seem to warrant. This gap is a signal of unrealized economic potential. It can help account for the pent-up social stresses that stem from a country’s inability to translate the talent, creativity, and ambition of its smartest citizens into greater levels of economic development and well-being for its citizens. This frustration is pronounced not just among those who are unemployed or locked in dead-end jobs, but also among those who do have flourishing careers with leading global organizations— Ghonim being a clear case in point.

With the help of my colleague Charlotta Mellander, I developed a simple metric to gauge this.  We created simple ratios, dividing the creative class percentage of the workforce on the one hand, and human capital levels on the other, by the level of economic output (GDP) per capita.

Revolution = size of creative class, the unrealized potential of creative class (ratio of creative class to GDP), creative class consciousness and organization (internet and social media access).

These measures are not perfect. Still, the results are intriguing and shed light on an important, heretofore neglected factor in revolutionary movements.

The map above shows the first of these ratios – the creative class to GDP ratio – for the Middle East and the world. Egypt ranks 7^th overall on this measure, with 33 percent of its workforce in the creative class and a GDP of just $1,620 dollars per person.  The West Bank-Gaza Strip ranks 6^th – with 24 percent of its workforce in the creative class and just $1,056 in GDP per capita.  Compare that to, say, Hong Kong, where the creative class numbers 34% and per capita GDP is $32,250, or Austria with its 35& creative class share and its per capita GDP of $25,940. The ratio is also considerable in Syria (22%, $1271), Algeria (21%, $2134), and Iran (16%, $2023).  But the worst ratios of all are found in nations outside the Middle East:  Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Ukraine, Mongolia, and Pakistan. China’s ratio is about the same as Croatia’s, Slovakia’s and Jamaica’s.  This measure does not capture everything.  The UAE, Qatar and Bahrain, which has been the scene of significant unrest, all register relatively small ratios.

The map below charts the second of the measures, the ratio of human capital to GDP, for the Middle East and the world.  Several Middle Eastern nations post high ratios – West Bank-Gaza Strip (39% human capital, $1,096 per capita GDP), Egypt (29%, $1,617), Jordan (35%, $2249), Tunisia (28%, $2526), and Iran (24%, $2,023).  While Iraq has a much lower level of human capital, its ratio is also quite high (15%, $681).  Lebanon, Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, and Morocco post moderate but still considerable ratios. As with creative class share, the worst ratios are found outside the Middle East, in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Moldova, Mongolia and the Ukraine.

China ranks 53^th about the same as Uganda, Colombia and Tunisia.  As with the creative class ratio, this measure has its limits.  Qatar, Kuwait, the UAE and Bahrain all register relatively low ratios.

I don’t pretend that these measures offer a comprehensive theory of revolution. Revolutions are infrequent and relatively unique events, each of them the products of many interacting social, political, economic, and cultural forces, as sizeable literatures in history, comparative sociology, and political science have documented  (Daniel Little summarizes some of this literature, notably the seminal Dynamics of Contention by Doug McAdam, Sidney Tarrow and Charles Tilly, over at his blog Understanding Society). And then there are nations like Bahrain, where revolutionary uprisings occur alongside relatively high levels of wealth: Money, after all, does not necessarily buy happiness, contentment, or freedom.

Americans may have an allergic revolution to the notion of class, but it’s time to put it back at the center of the conversation about revolution.  The working class has certainly played a much larger role in the Middle East uprisings than is commonly credited, but so too has the digital savvy, social media skills, and activism of the creative class.

Alongside the creative class and human capital, there is one more factor that plays a key role both in revolutionary unrest as well as economic development.   In my next post, I take a close look at the role played by cities, urbanisation and geographic proximity.

Terrible tragedies like last week’s mass shootings in Tucson cause us to search for deeper answers. Many were quick to blame America’s divisive and vitriolic political culture for the violence; others portray the shooter as an unhinged, clinically deranged person with his own unfathomable agenda. Arizona has been Ground Zero for the battle over immigration. Were the state’s political and economic travails a contributing factor? There has been some talk about guns, too. Might tighter gun control laws have made a difference?

The map above charts firearm deaths for the 50 states plus the District of Columbia. Note that these figures include accidental shootings, suicides, even acts of self-defense, as well as crimes. As of 2007, 10.2 out of every 100,000 people were killed by firearms across the United States, but that rate varies dramatically from state to state. In Hawaii, at the low end, it was 2.6 per 100,000; in New York and New Jersey it was 5.0 and 5.2 respectively. At the high end, 21.7 out of every 100,000 residents of the District of Columbia were killed by guns, 20.2 in Louisiana, 18.5 in Mississippi, and 17.8 in Alaska. Arizona ranked eighth nationally, with 15.1 deaths per 100,000.

With these data in hand, I decided to look at the factors associated with gun deaths at the state level. With the help of my colleague Charlotta Mellander, we charted the statistical correlations between firearm deaths and a variety of psychological, economic, social, and political characteristics of states. As usual, I point out that correlation does not imply causation, but simply points to associations between variables.

Let’s start by looking at factors that are sometimes assumed to be associated with gun violence but statistically are not.

It is commonly assumed that mental illness or stress levels trigger gun violence. But that’s not borne out at the state level. We found no statistical association between gun deaths and mental illness or stress levels. We also found no association between gun violence and the proportion of neurotic personalities.

Images of drug-crazed gunmen are a commonplace: Guns and drug abuse are presumed to go together. But, again, that was not the case in our state-level analysis. We found no association between illegal drug use and death from gun violence at the state level.

Some might think gun violence would be higher in states with higher levels of unemployment and higher levels of inequality. But, again, we found no evidence of any such association with either of these variables.

So what are the factors that are associated with firearm deaths at the state level?

Poverty is one. The correlation between death by gun and poverty at the state level is .59.

An economy dominated by working class jobs is another. Having a high percentage of working class jobs is closely associated with firearm deaths (.55).

And, not surprisingly, firearm-related deaths are positively correlated with the rates of high school students that carry weapons on school property (.54).

What about politics? It’s hard to quantify political rhetoric, but we can distinguish blue from red states. Taking the voting patterns from the 2008 presidential election, we found a striking pattern: Firearm-related deaths were positively associated with states that voted for McCain (.66) and negatively associated with states that voted for Obama (-.66). Though this association is likely to infuriate many people, the statistics are unmistakable. Partisan affiliations alone cannot explain them; most likely they stem from two broader, underlying factors – the economic and employment makeup of the states and their policies toward guns and gun ownership.

Firearm deaths were far less likely to occur in states with higher levels of college graduates (-.64) and more creative class jobs (-.52).

Gun deaths were also less likely in states with higher levels of economic development (with a correlation of -.32 to economic output) and higher levels of happiness and well-being (-.41).

And for all the terrifying talk about violence-prone immigrants, states with more immigrants have lower levels of gun-related deaths (the correlation between the two being -.34).

And what about gun control? As of July 29 of last year, Arizona became one of only three states that permit its citizens to carry concealed weapons without a permit. Might tighter gun control laws make a difference? Our analysis suggests that they do.

The map overlays the map of firearm deaths above with gun control restrictions by state. It highlights states which have one of three gun control restrictions in place – assault weapons’ bans, trigger locks, or safe storage requirements.

Firearm deaths are significantly lower in states with stricter gun control legislation. Though the sample sizes are small, we find substantial negative correlations between firearm deaths and states that ban assault weapons (-.45), require trigger locks (-.42), and mandate safe storage requirements for guns (-.48).

While the causes of individual acts of mass violence always differ, our analysis shows fatal gun violence is less likely to occur in richer states with more post-industrial knowledge economies, higher levels of college graduates, and tighter gun laws. Factors like drug use, stress levels, and mental illness are much less significant than might be assumed.

The mass shootings in Tucson over the weekend led to all sorts of exercises in arm-chair psychology. The media was quick to portray the shooter Jared Lee Loughner as unhinged and paranoid, digging up his Internet ravings and probing former friends and classmates for detailed testimonials of his bizarre statements and aggressive behavior. And, following its polarization meme, we were subjected to endless accounts of how America’s heated and “vitriolic” political climate helped to trigger such action.

But what can psychology tell us about the specific ways that regional, locational, and geographic factors can affect gun violence and mass shootings in particular?

I was surprised by what I found out when I asked my colleague Jason Rentfrow, the distinguished social psychologist at Cambridge University, about this. While some continue to attribute gun violence and mass shootings to hot climates in the U.S. and elsewhere – “Living in a hot and uncomfortable climate makes people irritable and rates of violence go up,” as Rentfrow summarizes their thinking – the preponderance of studies focus on a “culture of honor” that is especially pervasive in southern and western states. This is something that pundits and commentators need to take a good deal more seriously because, if it is correct, and a considerable body of research suggests that it is, it suggests that deep-seated regional and cultural factors play a substantial role in mass violence.

The classic study of the subject is by Richard Nisbett, a social psychologist at the University of Michigan. In his paper “Violence and Regional Culture,” published in the American Psychologist in 1993, Nisbett examined the higher rate of violence in the U.S. south, which he notes has been established since the time of revolution. After considering possible explanations having to do with poverty, slavery, and even the region’s hotter climate, he found a different answer in a cultural vestige of pastoralism: a deep “culture of honor” in which residents place an extraordinary value on personal reputation, family, and property. Threats to these things provoke aggressive reactions, leading to higher rates of murder and domestic violence. Here is how Nisbett himself explains it:

Southerners do not endorse violence in the abstract more than do Northerners, nor do they endorse violence in all specific forms of circumstances. Rather, they are more likely to endorse violence as an appropriate response to insults, as a means of self protection, and as a socialization tool in training children. This is the characteristic cultural pattern of herding societies the world over. Consistent with the culture-of-honor interpretation, it is argument-related and not felony-related homicide that is more common in the South…

There is another sense in which the culture of honor might turn out to be self-sustaining or even capable of expanding into mainstream culture. The culture is a variant of warrior culture the world over, and its independent invention countless times (Gilmore, 1990), combined with the regularities in its themes having to do with glorification of masculine attributes, suggests that it may be a particularly alluring stance that may  be capable of becoming functionally autonomous. Many observers (e.g., Naipaul, 1989; Shattuck, 1989) have noted that contemporary Southern backcountry culture, including music, dress, and social  stance, is spreading beyond its original geographical confines and becoming a part of the fabric of rural, and even urban, working-class America.

Perhaps for the young males who adopt it, this culture provides a romantic veneer to everyday existence. If so, it is distinctly possible that the violence characteristic of this culture is also spreading beyond its confines. An understanding of the culture  and its darker side would thus remain important for the foreseeable future.

Rentfrow also pointed me to a more recent study by Ryan P. Brown, Lindsey Osterman, and Collin  Barnes of the University of Oklahoma, published in Psychological Science in 2009, which reinforces Nisbett’s findings and suggests that the culture of honor plays a particularly significant role in high school violence. The study found that the culture of honor to be significantly associated with two indices of school violence: the percentage of high school students who reported having brought a weapon to school during the past month, and the prevalence of actual school shootings over a 20-year period.” The authors summarize their key findings this way:

Some researchers have suggested that the apparent relationship between general acts of violence and the culture of honor in the United States might be at least partially explained by demographic differences between Southern and Western states, on the one hand, and Northern and Eastern states, on the other, rather than being a product of cultural differences (Anderson & Anderson, 1996). Indeed, culture-of-honor states are typically hotter, more rural, and poorer than non-culture-of-honor states, and any of these differences might explain the link between culture of honor and violence.

However, the state-level demographic variables that we examined—  which included temperature, rurality, social composition, and indices of economic and social insecurity—were unable to account for the association between culture of honor and our school-violence indicators, and also were inconsistent predictors of the school-violence variables across the two studies. This marks an important difference between these indicators of school violence and more general indicators of violent crime among adults, which typically show stronger and more consistent associations with temperature, rurality, and environmental-insecurity measures similar to the ones we used (Anderson, 1989; Baron & Straus, 1988; Cohen, 1996; Lee, Bankston, Hayes, & Thomas, 2007).

This difference suggests that school violence is a somewhat  distinct form of aggression that should not be viewed through  standard lenses. That the culture of honor appears to be such a robust predictor of school violence supports the hypothesis that school violence might be partially a product of long-term or recent experiences of social marginalization, humiliation,  rejection, or bullying (Leary et al., 2003; Newman et al., 2005),   all of which represent honor threats with special significance to  people (particularly males) living in culture-of-honor states.

I am amazed how well this explanation seems to fit the emerging facts and context of the mass violence in Tucson. Here I don’t mean the obvious fact that the shooting  happened in a Sunbelt city:  Tucson is a sophisticated college town, not the sort of rural backwater Nisbett had in mind. It is the nature of the culture of honor itself  and the way it acts on and through marginalized young males, just like Loughner. The culture of honor, as Nisbett describes it, sees violence as an “appropriate response to insults” and as “a means of self-protection.”

Numerous media reports note that Loughner grew more obsessed with Congresswoman Giffords after he felt she did not give him a respectful answer to the question he asked her at an earlier forum. Then there are the results of the University of Oklahoma study which finds the culture of honor to be a particularly robust predictor of high school violence, especially among young males who have been marginalized, bullied, rejected, or faced other ”honor threats.” And, Nisbett’s some two-decades-old warning that the culture of honor is not something that is necessarily geographically bounded but seems to spreading into broader aspects of young male working-class enclaves in both urban and rural communities is as prescient as it is chilling.

My next post will cover the social, economic, political, and cultural as well as psychological factors that are associated with gun violence and firearm deaths across the 50 U.S. states.

The United States and other advanced nations are stepping up their efforts to combat corruption in poorer, less developed nations by publicizing the corruption and by punishing their own companies when they engage in it. The U.S. Congress added a bipartisan amendment to pending financial reform legislation, requiring oil, gas, and mining companies to disclose every payment they make to foreign governments, according to a recent report in The Economist.

But can such efforts stem the tide? My own analysis suggests that before we can deal with systemic corruption we must first come to grips with the fact that it doesn’t occur in a vacuum — it is a symptom of deeply rooted economic and social maladies.

Source: Map from The Economist, data from Transparency International.

The map above shows how the nations of the world stack up on Transparency International’s 2010 Corruption Perception Index or CPI, which tracks government bribes, kickbacks, embezzlement, and other forms of public corruption. Topping the list as the world’s least corrupt nation is Denmark, followed by New Zealand, Singapore, Finland, Sweden, and Canada. The United States ranks 22nd. The BRIC nations – Brazil, Russia, India, and China – rank in the bottom third of the CPI, even though they are among the fastest-growing nations in the world. Countries like Angola, Somalia, Afghanistan, and Iraq are at the very bottom.

To get a better handle on all of this, my colleague Charlotta Mellander and I compared how a nation’s rank on the corruption index compares to its standing on a series of other standard measures — economic development (economic output per capita), the transition to a more highly skilled knowledge economy (human capital levels and the creative class share of the workforce), social tolerance (as measured by Gallup World Poll surveys which track attitudes to gays and ethnic and racial minorities), and the overall level of happiness or life satisfaction (also from Gallup surveys). Note that the CPI ranks countries in reverse order; the higher its score, the less corrupt the country. As always, we caution readers not to make too much of these findings. Our analysis can only identify relationships among variables and in no way implies causation.

The chart above summarizes the key results of our analysis. Generally speaking, the associations we found between corruption and economic and social development are quite striking.

Corruption and Economic Development: Corruption is closely associated with the overall level of economic development: The richer the country, the less corrupt it tends to be (the correlation coefficient between CPI and GDP per capita is .81). The above chart shows this graphically, with wealthier, more advanced nations clustered at the top, and poorer, less developed nations clustered at the bottom.

Corruption and the Creative Class: Corruption is lower in knowledge-based economies. The CPI is highly correlated with human capital (.58) and even more so with the creative class share (.69). The chart above graphs the association between the CPI and the creative class.

Corruption and Social Tolerance: Corrupt nations also tend to be intolerant places. The CPI is correlated with attitudes toward racial and ethnic minorities (.48) and even more so with attitudes toward gays and lesbians (.74), which the political sociologist Ronald Inglehart of the University of Michigan notes is the last frontier of intolerance across the nations of the world. The above chart shows the relationship between CPI rankings and attitudes toward gays and lesbians.

Corruption and Happiness: Corrupt nations tend to have low levels of happiness and life satisfaction. The CPI is highly correlated with overall life satisfaction (.67). The chart above shows the relationship between the two.

It is much easier to condemn international corruption than it is to overcome it. My own analysis suggests that penalizing companies that pay bribes is to treat one symptom while failing to diagnose, let alone attempt to cure, the underlying disease. Corruption is a fact of economic development. It is endemic not just in the poorest and least functional of nations, but even in the fast-growing (but still comparatively less-developed) BRIC. Corrupt nations have more traditional economic structures, based on resource extraction or manufacturing; they have not yet made the transition to highly skilled knowledge economies. Corrupt nations are more likely to be intolerant; their citizens not only must endure lower material living standards but lower levels of happiness and life satisfaction.

If we really want to combat corruption we must deal with the broader and much harder challenges of economic development. When less developed nations begin to leverage their knowledge, skills, and human capital to raise their levels of economic output, then the battle is already won.

American attitudes toward immigration are hardening, according to a new Gallup poll. Half of all Americans say immigration should be “decreased” – up 11 points from 39 percent last year.

Anti-immigration sentiment is growing across all major political groupings. Some 61 percent of Republicans say they would like to see immigration decreased, up from 46 percent in 2008, compared to 46 percent of Democrats, up from 39 percent; and 44 percent of Independents, up from 37 percent.

Southerners show the greatest anti-immigration sentiment with 54 percent saying they would like to see immigration decreased, followed by easterners (51 percent), midwesterners (48 percent), and westerners (44 percent).

The poll also saw a shift in American attitudes toward whether “immigration is a good or a bad thing for the country” with more than a third (36 percent) saying it is a bad thing.

Gallup notes that this marks “a return to the attitudes that prevailed in the first few years after 9/11.”

Immigration in America has gone in great cycles over the past century or two. While immigration has typically fallen during economic crises, the U.S. has prospered from its relative openness to global talent. America saw an influx of leading scientists, entrepreneurs, artists, and musicians during the Great Depression which helped bolster its position at the frontiers of science, technology, entrepreneurship, and the arts during the long post-war boom.

Economic crises are transformative periods when talent flows can be reset and countries and regions rise and decline. The future belongs to those countries and regions that can attract the best and brightest across the entire world.

Growing anti-immigrant sentiment, should it continue, is bad news for American technology, entrepreneurship, and the economy in general. Let’s hope it turns around.

Anti-immigration sentiment may be growing in some parts of the country, but this Philadelphia non-profit welcomes them as part of a new urban future.

Stephen Walt spells out the advantages of tolerance, openness, and cosmopolitanism from the realist respective (thanks to Jon Rauch for the pointer). He goes to great pains to point out that he is talking about cosmopolitan openness not just ethnic assimilation.

[T]he pressures of international competition give an advantage to any society that can “cream” some of the smartest and/or hardest working people from all over the world. How? By making that society an attractive place to live and work, mostly by creating an atmosphere of equality and toleration…

And note that this argument isn’t just about ethnic assimilation. In effect, what I’m suggesting is that from a realist perspective, there is a strong case for “small-l” liberal toleration. All else equal, societies that establish strong norms and institutions that protect individual rights and freedoms (including those governing sexual preference, I might add) will become attractive destinations for a wider array of potential citizens than societies that try to maintain a high degree of uniformity. And when you can choose from a bigger talent pool, over time you’re going to do better.

Same-sex couples have been getting married for five years now in Massachusetts. Gary Gates of UCLA’s Williams Institute has done the number-crunching and identified intriguing economic benefits.

“Data from the American Community Survey suggest that marriage equality has a small but positive impact on the number of individuals in same-sex couples who are attracted to a state. However, marriage equality appears to have a larger impact on the types of individuals in same-sex couples who are attracted to a state. In Massachusetts, marriage equality resulted in an increase of younger, female, and more highly educated and skilled individuals in same-sex couples moving to the state… The evidence that marriage equality may enhance the ability of Massachusetts to attract highly skilled creative class workers among those in same-sex couples offers some support that the policy has the potential to have a long-term positive economic impact.”

One of the more controversial ideas in Richard’s Creative Class theory is the Gay Index. To review, he doesn’t say that gays cause creativity, but that their acceptance by the straight community is a sign of tolerance which is important to creative class folks. Well, it looks like a lot of America is becoming more tolerant.

With Iowa and Vermont becoming the third and fourth states to allow same-sex marriage this week, there is obviously a trend. New Hampshire’s State Senate is preparing to vote on a House-passed measure. California is awaiting a state Supreme Court ruling on Proposition 8, which prohibited gay marriage. The Washington, D.C. council unanimously passed a same-sex marriage ordinance but it has to be approved by Congress, so will probably be overturned.

What all of this is showing is a remarkably fast change in public attitudes. The larger public image of gays has shifted from promiscuous pedophiles to 25-year couples who want to get married.

• A third of Americans think same-sex couples should be allowed to marry, up from 22 percent in 2004. This five-year change is indicative of a major cultural shift.
• Sixty percent think some sort of legal recognition is appropriate for same-sex couples.
• California’s Proposition 8, which outlawed gay marriage, passed by 52 percent, meaning that 48 percent or almost half of the state’s population approved.
• The vote in the D.C. council, which has six of 13 black members, rebuts the idea that the African Americans are uniformly anti gay rights.

News stories point to churches like Quakers and Unitarians that perform same-sex marriages. However, a couple of decades ago no denomination would do so. The difficult changes in Quaker Meetings took years and some members leaving to happen. There’s a saying in Quaker circles that it took 200 years for Quakers to oppose slavery – but they did it 100 years before the rest of the country. The same thing is proving true with gay marriage.

So if America is becoming more accepting of gays, what does this mean for the creative class and the economy?