For economists immigration laws and visa requirements are really just impediments to free trade. Workers should be able to supply their services wherever in the world there is demand for them, their nationality be damned. But what would the results be if this actually happened? Dylan Matthews reported on a couple of studies that tried to find the answer:

• Workers in developing countries could see their wages more than double to $19,272 – twice the American poverty line.
• In the short term the wages of those in rich countries would decline by 20%, but in the longer run things would even out as all the poor workers would now have the income to buy more goods.
• Such a move could also double the world’s GDP, increasing it by $65 trillion.

Matthews goes into much more detail about the studies here.

Source: The Washington Post