Immigration from the EU is not a ‘necessary evil’ and does not drag down wages

A major argument of the campaign to leave the EU is that Brexit would give the UK more control over the flow of immigrants from across Europe, who have supposedly hurt the jobs and pay of British workers. Research by Jonathan Wadsworth, Swati Dhingra, Gianmarco Ottaviano and John van Reenen shows that far from EU immigration being a ‘necessary evil’ to gain access to the greater trade and foreign investment that comes from being in the EU Single Market, immigration is at worst neutral and at best, an economic benefit of EU membership.