A draft of the state population growth council’s recommendations report contains little that has a demonstrated effect of increasing state population. Lawmakers should look instead to the latest review of the economic research performed by Mackinac Center scholar Hannah Kling.

Population growth is determined by more than policy. But there are powerful policies that help states increase their population.

An obvious barrier to population growth is in the state’s occupational licensing rules. Qualified professionals are prevented from working in Michigan without first getting a license from the state. Those licenses can be costly, require professionals to spend their time on unnecessary training and testing, or require further bureaucratic hurdles.

One study Kling highlights found that exam requirements reduced migration for people in the licensed profession by 36%. This is something that policy can improve. It’s tough to move to good-paying opportunities when licensing rules stop people from working. To the Growing Michigan Together Council’s credit, it does recommend universal license recognition in its draft, which was obtained by Lansing insider newsletter MIRS.

Driving is a dangerous activity and policies that reduce drunk driving can reduce deaths. States with stricter drunk driving rules have fewer people dying on the roads. Perhaps more can be done to encourage drinkers to stay off the road with more concentrated effort by policymakers.

Michigan contains cities with some of the highest levels of crime, and doing something about that would improve their prospects for population growth. As one study author put it simply, “Crime is a very salient disamenity.”

The things that sound like they ought to work can turn out to be ineffective. Policymakers pay a lot of attention to “placemaking,” — ostensibly, transit, parks and walkability efforts — but academics don’t find that it translates into population growth. As Kling concludes from her review of the research, “It seems that well-educated workers tend to base their location decisions more on job-related factors like salary and career fit than on place-related factors like social welfare, urban amenities or public transportation infrastructure.”

The biggest factor in population trends is not any one particular policy, though. Thriving places attract more people. The basic prescription of economic freedom — low taxes, stable money, free markets — matters to economic growth, and thus to population growth.

Readers will find a lot of arguments for more government in the population growth council’s draft report. There is little case made for governments to improve without more funding. That’s a problem because people benefit when governments do a better job with what they have. Better schools encourage migration, for instance, but spending more on schools won’t automatically create good ones. Policymakers should focus on how to get better schools rather than on how much more to spend on schools.

As the literature review shows, Michigan lags the national average in all of the primary determinants of population growth. There are fewer births, more deaths, fewer international immigrations, and more people leaving the state than coming in.

Policymakers ought to look to the academic research to see what works to improve these trends. Unfortunately, they won’t be able to rely on what the state’s population growth council has produced so far to pinpoint effective policies.

Permission to reprint this blog post in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided that the author (or authors) and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy are properly cited.