alfred marshall lecture social capital as good culture to explain the extremely long term persistence more than 500 years of positive historical experiences of cooperation putnam 1993 we model the intergenerational transmission of priors about the trustworthiness of others we show that this transmission tends to be biased toward excessively conservative priors as a result societies can be trapped in a low trust equilibrium in this context a temporary shock to the return to trusting can have a permanent effect on the level of trust we validate the model by testing its predictions on the world values survey data and the german socio economic panel we also present some anecdotal evidence that these priors are reflected in novels that originate in different parts of the country jel 04 016 043 p16

scale economies in factor supplies international trade and migration this paper incorporates externalities generated by human capital into the heckscher ohlin samuelson framework to examine the patterns of international trade and migration individuals endowed with different levels of human capital choose to become either unskilled or skilled workers national scale economies with respect to human capital play an important role in endogenously determining these factor supplies and yield a number of interesting patterns of trade and migration migration could reinforce comparative advantage both skilled and unskilled workers could migrate in the same direction

sports sentiment and stock returns this paper investigates the stock market reaction to sudden changes in investor mood motivated by psychological evidence of a strong link between soccer outcomes and mood we use international soccer results as our primary mood variable we find a significant market decline after soccer losses for example a loss in the world cup elimination stage leads to a next day abnormal stock return of 49 basis points this loss effect is stronger in small stocks and in more important games and is robust to methodological changes we also document a loss effect after international cricket rugby and basketball games this paper employs a novel mood variable international soccer results to investigate the effect of investor sentiment on asset prices using a cross section of 39 countries we find that losses in soccer matches have an economically and statistically significant negative effect on the losing country s stock market for example elimination from a major international soccer tournament is associated with a next day return on the national stock market index that is 38 basis points lower than average we also document a loss effect after international cricket rugby and basketball games on average the effect is smaller in magnitude for these other sports than for soccer but is still economically and statistically significant we find no evidence of a corresponding effect after wins for any of the sports that we study controlling for the pre game expected outcome we are able to reject the hypothesis that the loss effect after soccer games is driven by economic factors such as reduced productivity or lost revenues we

a gravity model analysis of international migration to north america this study examines the influence of political economic and demographic factors on the size and composition of migration flows to north america a modified gravity model is specified and adjusted to include immigration regulations and characteristics specific to the origin and destination countries for empirical test of the model the time period of study is from 1976 1986 and 70 countries are covered for a total of 1540 observations of migration flows to canada and the usa the results reveal that the population of origin countries and the income of destination countries are two major determinants of migration to north america high population areas of asia and latin america provided a large share of the immigrants domestic restrictions on political and civil freedom in origin countries are found to significantly impair migration to north america

immigrant participation in the welfare system this paper presents a systematic analysis of immigrant participation in the us welfare system using the 1970 and 1980 us censuses in contrast to the previous studies the researchers focused on changes in welfare use across immigrant cohorts over time for a single immigrant cohort as it assimilates to the us furthermore it develops a theoretical model of the migration decision that explicitly incorporates the income insurance aspect of the us welfare system the analysis revealed that recent immigrant cohorts use the welfare system more intensively than earlier immigrant waves also the immigrant welfare participation was greater the longer an immigrant household had resided in the us and those characteristics of the immigrants country of origin were important determinants of welfare participation in addition the theoretical model of the migration decision which explicitly incorporated the presence of a welfare system in the destination country and this model could account for some of the ways in which source country characteristics were found to affect immigrant welfare participation

canada s demand for third world highly trained immigrants 1976 86 abstract immigration to canada after a major policy change in 1978 which favored the family reunification class has been dominated by third world immigrants these immigrants continue to be a significant source of highly trained individuals for canada using an excess demand model to estimate the determinants of demand this paper finds that the supply of domestic graduates occupational income and the previous periods immigration level are major variables that influence canada s demand for skilled immigrants thus it is argued that the movement in these variables primarily guides canadian immigration policy toward skilled immigrants

income distribution political instability and investment abstract this paper successfully tests on a sample of 71 countries for the period 1960 85 the following hypotheses income inequality by fuelling social discontent increases sociopolitical instability the latter by creating uncertainty in the politico economic environment reduces investment as a consequence income inequality and investment are inversely related since investment is a primary engine of growth this paper identifies a channel for an inverse relationship between income inequality and growth we measure socio political instability with indices which capture the occurrence of more or less violent phenomena of political unrest and we test our hypotheses by estimating a two equation model in which the endogenous variables are investment and an index of socio political instability our results are robust to sensitivity analysis on the specification of the model and the measure of political instability and are unchanged when the model is estimated using robust regression techniques

undocumented immigration and income inequality in the native born population of the us econometric evidence according to the theoretical models suggested by chiswick and others the growing presence of undocumented immigrants in the us should have a disequalizing effect on income distribution in the native born population however this proposition has not been subjected to empirical test here an econometric model of income inequality in native born households is constructed and census based estimates of the state distribution of undocumented immigrants are used to estimate model parameters the results show that such immigration has been disequalizing but that the impact has been small ranking behind several other socio economic variables

the impact of immigration on the human capital of natives implications of the quantity number and quality skill of immigration on the destination economy are analyzed including impacts on value added wages quasi rents rates of return and the skill distribution of the native labor force quantity quality trade offs are considered for both immigrant and native workers medium and long run labor supply responses by natives to immigrant induced changes in wage rates are shown to have second order effects which substantively affect the impacts of immigrants the impact of immigration policy depends on the quality as well as quantity of immigrants the time horizon and the speed of factor market adjustment

war and pestilence as labor market shocks u s manufacturing wage growth 1914 1919 there is not a single expert machinist in the labor market today if such a one exists he will be able to command his own wages the arkansas gazette october 22 1918 1 i introduction the possibility of a worldwide influenza pandemic in the near future is of growing concern for many countries around the globe the world bank estimates that a global influenza pandemic would cost the world economy 800 kill tens of millions of people 2 researchers at the u s centers for disease control and prevention calculate that deaths in the united states could reach 207 000 and the initial cost to the economy could approach 166 billion or roughly 1 5 of gdp 3 the u s department of health and human services paints a more dire picture up to 1 9 million dead in the united states and initial economic costs near 200 billion 4 while researchers and public officials can only speculate on the likelihood of a global influenza pandemic many of the worst case scenario predictions for a current pandemic are based on the global influenza pandemic of 1918 this global pandemic often termed the spanish flu killed 675 000 people in the united states nearly 0 8 of the 1910 population and nearly 40 million people worldwide 5 only the black death of 13481351 is estimated to have killed more people roughly 60 million over a similar time period 6 the global magnitude and spread of the 1918 influenza pandemic was exacerbated by world war i which itself is estimated to have killed roughly 10 million civilians and 9 million troops nicolson 1980 not only did the mass movement of troops from around the world lead to the spread of the disease tens of thousands of allied and central power troops died as a result of the influenza rather than combat although combat deaths in world war i did increase the mortality rates for participating countries civilian mortality rates from the 1918 influenza were typically much higher for the united states estimates of combat related troop mortalities are about one tenth that of civilian mortalities from the 1918 influenza given the magnitudes and the concurrence of both the 1918 influenza pandemic and world war i one would expect volumes of research on the economic effects of each event although there does exist a significant literature on the economic consequences of world war i rockoff 2004 the scope of published research on the economic effects of the 1918 influenza pandemic is scant 8 most research that has been done has focused on the health and economic outcomes of decedents of pandemic survivors almond 2006 keyfits and flieger 1968 and mortality differences across socioeconomic classes mamelund 2006 noymer and garenne 2000 this paper contributes to the literature on the economic effects of the 1918 influenza pandemic and world war i by exploring the influence of mortalities from these concurrent events on the growth of manufacturing wages in u s states and cities over the period 1914 1919 9 the general conceptual foundation for the paper is that ceteris paribus both of these events resulted in a large number of deaths which constituted a significant negative shock to manufacturing labor supply and thereby would have increased wages in the manufacturing sector immediately following both events a similar conceptual framework has been used in studies that explored the economic effects of the black death campbell 1997 karakacili 2004 and the effects of immigration on labor markets borjas 1987 card 1990 greenwood and mcdowell 1986 the analysis presented here is the first to separate the potential manufacturing labor market effects of world war i and the 1918 influenza this is an interesting exercise given that mortalities from the 1918 influenza were nearly ten times greater than world war i combat mortalities but world war i combat mortalities were more likely men aged roughly 18 44 prime ages for manufacturing workers

social security and migration with endogenous skill upgrading abstract the aim of the paper is to investigate the joint redistributive effects of migration and pensions and to reassess the sustainability issue raised in the existing economic literature the paper first develops a theoretical framework to analyse the impact of international migration on the labour market the model allows for heterogeneity across native born individuals and for migrants to affect both the wages and the education decision in the recipient country it then explicitly focuses on pensions under alternative migration scenarios the analysis shows that migration causes redistributive effects which increase across group wage inequality however the endogenous educational response by residents partially offsets the redistributive impact of migration while creating additional interest groups migration helps the financial sustainability of the pension scheme but the interaction between migration and pensions causes complex inter and intragenerational redistributive conflicts which are analysed in the paper

investor mood herding and the ramadan effect in view of evidence linking herding and social mood we examine whether the positive mood documented during ramadan translates into higher herding compared to non ramadan days drawing on a sample of seven majority muslim countries we report significant herding during ramadan in most of our sample markets additionally we show that herding appears significantly stronger within rather than outside ramadan for most tests whereby its significance is manifested on both ramadan and non ramadan days overall herding significance within outside ramadan exhibits some variation in its levels across markets in relation to variables reflective of market states both domestically market returns market volume and internationally us market returns us investors sentiment global financial crisis market states

why don t you trade only four days a year an empirical study into the abnormal returns of quarters first trading day in this research i examined a calendar anomaly that occurs at the beginning of each quarter through an examination of 34 years of daily and annual returns for the s p500 and 13 years of returns for popular etfs i have demonstrated the existence of the first day of quarter fdq effect by trading only four days a year from the beginning of 2000 until the end of 2013 an investor could have gained 113 1 of the s p500 returns for that period while being exposed to stock risk for only 56 days moreover for 11 of those 14 years of trading the fdq was responsible for more than 10 of the annual returns only for two years since 2000 2001 2005 has the fdq yielded a negative return the biggest beneficiary of the fdq is the financial sector which for the last 13 years of investing has been non fertile showing 6 12 total return investing only at the beginning of each quarter for a total of 52 days would have yielded a return of 40 17 the next beneficiary of the fdq is the technological sector the 82 5 of total return gained in this sector over the last 13 years could have been gained in only 52 days of trading

inequality in landownership the emergence of human capital promoting institutions and the great divergence this paper suggests that inequality in the distribution of landownership adversely affected the emergence of human capital promoting institutions e g public schooling and thus the pace and the nature of the transition from an agricultural to an industrial economy contributing to the emergence of the great divergence in income per capita across countries the prediction of the theory regarding the adverse effect of the concentration of landownership on education expenditure is established empirically based on evidence from the beginning of the 20th century in the u s

income inequality and international migration the purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact of international factor movements on the personal distribution of income in order to get clearcut results we use a simple model of trade and migration in which there are two traded goods and three factors for any given country one of the traded goods corresponds to exports and the other to imports the three factors include capital and two types of labour skilled and unskilled we focus mainly on the alternative results of international migration of the two types of labour the geographical focus is worldwide excerpt

diverging patterns with endogenous labor migration abstract the standard neoclassical model cannot explain persistent migration flows and lack of cross country convergence when capital and labor are mobile here we present a model where both phenomena may take place assuming increasing returns and perfect capital mobility the driving forces behind labor migration are the size and the composition of the workforce the size of the workforce produces divergence a larger workforce in one country implies higher wages the wage gap induces in migration and this makes the wage gap even larger in this case migration is only beneficial for the labor importing country the evolution in the composition of the workforce due to migration may have opposite effects in one case in migration keeps the wage of skilled workers high enough to induce people to qualify for skilled jobs this improves the composition of labor in the receiving country only and it makes divergence a likely outcome in another case labor migration keeps the relative wage of unskilled workers in the rich country high enough to induce all migrants to take unskilled jobs and reduce the skilled to unskilled ratio in that country then migration is beneficial to the country which was first exporting labor

economic effects of immigrants on native and foreign born workers complementarity substitutability and other channels of influence the authors use standard metropolitan statistical area smsa data constructed from 1980 census microdata files and other sources to estimate a structural model of native foreign born labor demand and labor supply which distinguishes the effects upon real wages of each type of labor and on the employment of natives the authors specify econometrically estimate and simulate the structural model which incorporates not only a production structure channel through which immigrants influence area real wages and employment but also demand and native labor supply channels it is noted that while these are not the only channels through which immigrants may affect native workers the model nonetheless constitutes a step in the direction of a general equilibrium approach in the production structure channel immigrants and natives are found to be substitutes in production immigration lowers foreign born wage rates and leads to lower wages for natives the negative effects of the production channel usually are ameliorated through the demand channel further immigrants add to local demand through their earnings and potentially through non labor income while also lowering unit costs and local prices which enhances real incomes and potentially net exports and thus the demands for local output and area labor the author discusses findings of interest from the simulation results based upon an analysis of all areas

das human kapital a theory of the demise of the class structure this paper suggests that the demise of the capitalists workers class structure was a socio economic transformation orchestrated by the capitalists in reaction to the increasing importance of human capital in sustaining their profit rates physical capital accumulation in the process of industrialization enhanced the importance of human capital in production and generated incentives for capitalists to support the provision of public education for the masses triggering the demise of the existing class structure the implications of the theory are consistent with the voting patterns on england s education reform of 1902

people s opium religion and economic attitudes since max weber there has been an active debate on the impact of religion on people s economic attitudes much of the existing evidence however is based on cross country studies in which this impact is confounded by differences in other institutional factors we use the worldvalues surveys to id entify the relationship between intensity of religious beliefs and economic attitudes controlling for country fixed effects we study several economic attitudes towardcooperation the government working women legal rules thriftiness andthe market economy we also distinguish across religious denominations differentiating on whether a religion is dominant in a country we find that on average religious beliefs are associated with good economic attitudes where good is defined as conducive to higher per capita income andgrowth yet religious people tendto be more racist andless favorable with respect to working women these effects differ across religious denominations overall we find that christian religions are more positively associatedwith attitudes conducive to economic growth r 2003 elsevier science b v all rights reserved jel classification a1 e0 n4 z1

trade theory distribution of income and immigration this paper examines the impact of mass immigration utilizing the analytical framework of so called trade theory as such its emphasis is on general equilibrium effects and on the constraints imposed by the openness of the economy on such effects the analysis will center on the distributional impact of unskilled labor immigration excerpt

unions rent creators or extractors this paper proposes a model of workplace specific unions that integrates two views of what unions do one view holds that unions mainly engage in rent extraction another view holds that unions mainly engage in rent creation by providing agency services that increase workplace productivity we demonstrate that the choice between the two activities is systematically related to the economic and regulatory environment in which the union operates product market competition encourages rent creation while labor market deregulation encourages rent extraction moreover we provide a rationale for why firms may want to subsidize unions the editors of the scandinavian journal of economics 2005

some economic determinants of third world professional immigration to the united states 1972 87 abstract we estimate reduced form equations for immigration to the united states by engineers natural and social scientists and physicians from 18 third world countries explanatory variables include income real gdp growth graduation in the united states and study in each country of origin additional explanatory variables are foreign student enrollment in the united states lagged immigration total immigration from each country and a dummy variable which accounts for implementation of restrictions on permanent visas in 1972 1973 results generally conform to expectations but differ across occupations and with model specification most income statistics are unexpected however and the strong correlation of us income with graduation in the united states suggests that there is a simultaneity problem in models which include income because immigration appears to respond to labor shortages in the united states and surpluses in countries of origin our results suggest that us immigration quotas have not prevented third world professionals from responding to economic incentives

on the macroeconomic and welfare effects of illegal immigration abstract this paper uses a dynamic general equilibrium model with labor market frictions to explore the economic consequences of illegal immigration in the baseline model native workers and illegal foreign workers compete for jobs in the same market but serve as imperfect substitutes in production the calibrated model generates a u shaped relationship between long run domestic consumption and the population share of illegal immigrants after taking into account both consumption and leisure i found that an increase in illegal immigration can generate significant welfare gains for the natives the baseline model is then extended to include heterogeneous workers in the domestic population

migration of professionals from fiji to new zealand a reduced form supply demand model abstract in this study we estimate a reduced form equation for migration of highly skilled and professionally trained workers from fiji to new zealand during 1987 1990 explanatory variables include previous period s migrants occupational income in new zealand the supply of graduates in new zealand and political instability in fiji using a reduced form supply demand model to estimate the determinants of migration the study finds that the number of professional migrants from fiji was significantly and positively related to previous year s migrants the real income in new zealand and political instability in fiji

religious holidays investor distraction and earnings announcement effects abstract we examine price reactions to u s firms earnings announcements during easter week in order to analyze whether and how the religious holiday calendar impacts investors information processing we find that there is an asymmetric pattern of immediate and delayed responses to earnings surprises experienced during easter entailing similar immediate reactions to both good and bad news and a stronger delayed response to bad news moreover local religious characteristics affect investor s response to firm news the results are consistent with a religion induced distraction effect on investors information processing ability we also show that this effect can form the basis for a profitable trading strategy the findings highlight the importance of religion for firms information environment and for the local component of stock prices

global talent local careers circular migration of top indian engineers and professionals despite heightened interests from policy makers in the notion of brain circulation the discussion around the issue has remained largely theoretical drawing upon unique data of the alumni of a leading indian university this study examines how migration dynamics unfold within a highly educated population whose emigration is considered as a classic example of brain drain we adopt an integrative framework bringing together macro level push and pull influences and individual level selectivity we find that disparity in economic development between countries drives migration flows in both directions while host country demand has a stronger impact on out migration than on return migration we also detect significant selection effects at the individual level top students are more likely to emigrate and less likely to return in out migration flowing out of the country appear to be the best and the brightest amongst the highly educated talent pool in return migration negative selection is manifested in multiple aspects including ability post migration human capital investment and income we also find that the influences of macro forces vary amongst individuals higher ability individuals appear to be less affected by demand changes the findings have important policy implications for both source countries and receiving countries

the impact of host country schooling on earnings a study of male immigrants in the united states immigrants in the united states who acquire u s schooling earn higher wages than other immigrants using data from the u s censuses and the national longitudinal survey of youth we show that this wage advantage results from both greater educational attainment and higher returns to education the higher returns are not the consequence of ability bias or greater english proficiency of those who acquire u s schooling returns to years of non u s education are higher for immigrants who complete their schooling in the united states consistent with the view that u s schooling upgrades or certifies education received in the source country for those without u s schooling returns are higher for immigrants from highly developed countries and countries for which english is an official language

migration and labour markets in oecd countries a panel cointegration approach this article examines the interaction between immigration and the host labour market of 14 organization for economic co operation and development oecd countries using nonstationary panel data methodology we estimate a trivariate vector error correction model vecm and derive causality tests to simultaneously assess the long and short term macroeconomic impact of newcomers on wages and unemployment levels in the host country the results suggest that an increase of migrants is likely to increase wages in the destination countries in the short run but to increase them in the long run there is no evidence of adverse effects on unemployment due to immigration in short and long term except for anglo saxon countries in the short term our findings also show that immigration is conditioned by levels of unemployment and wages especially in anglo saxon countries

of religion and redemption evidence from default on islamic loans we compare default rates on conventional and islamic loans using a comprehensive monthly dataset from pakistan that follows more than 150 000 loans over the period 2006 04 to 2008 12 we find robust evidence that the default rate on islamic loans is less than half the default rate on conventional loans islamic loans are less likely to default during ramadan and in big cities if the share of votes to religious political parties increases suggesting that religion either through individual piousness or network effects may play a role in determining loan default

illegal immigration in an efficiency wage model abstract this paper studies illegal immigration using an efficiency wage dual labor market model the illegal immigrants are endogenously sorted completely or incompletely into secondary labor markets the effects of immigration on native workers are more complex than in standard models of factor mobility as illegals first enter the country natives may gain because the number of primary sector jobs rises with enough illegals in the country natives are hurt because the migrants increasingly take those primary sector jobs enforcing immigration laws by deporting migrants who work in primary sector jobs is pareto superior to other forms of enforcement

assimilation changes in cohort quality and the earnings of immigrants this paper reexamines the empirical basis for two facts that seem to be found in most cross section studies of immigrant earnings 1 the earnings of immigrants grow rapidly as they assimilate into the united states and 2 this rapid growth leads to many immigrants overtaking the earnings of the natives within 10 15 years after immigration using the 1970 and 1980 u s censuses this paper studies the earnings growth experienced by specific immigrant cohorts during the period 1970 80 it is found that within cohort growth is significantly smaller than the growth predicted by cross section regressions for most immigrant groups this differential is consistent with the hypothesis that there has been a secular decline in the quality of immigrants admitted to the united states

the ramaswami proposition and the choice among labor capital and technology flows abstract this paper examines the choice between labor and capital flows in the context of a one good two country model where the two countries differ in their levels of disembodied technology in contrast to the ramaswami proposition it is shown that a country may prefer an optimal outflow of its abundant factor to an optimal inflow of its scarce factor it is also shown that for sufficiently small differences in technology the labor rich technology inferior country will benefit more from an optimal outflow of labor than from a gift of superior technology

immigrant and emigrant earnings a longitudinal study this paper analyzes the relationship between earnings and the extent of assimilation cohort quality change and return migration experienced by the foreign born population the study uses the longitudinal data available in the survey of natural and social scientists and engineers the analysis reveals that there was a sizable decline in the skills of this population over the last two decades in addition the study shows that return migration is more likely among immigrants who did not perform well in the u s labor market

the political economy of hatred this paper develops a model of the interaction between the supply of hate creating stories from politicians and the willingness of voters to listen to hatred hatred is fostered with stories of an out group s crimes but the impact of these stories comes from repetition not truth hate creating stories are supplied by politicians when such actions help to discredit opponents whose policies benefit an out group egalitarians foment hatred against rich minorities opponents of redistribution build hatred against poor minorities hatred relies on people accepting rather than investigating hate creating stories hatred declines when there is private incentive to learn the truth increased economic interactions with a minority group may provide that incentive this framework is used to illuminate the evolution of anti black hatred in the united states south episodes of anti semitism in europe and the recent surge of anti americanism in the arab world

self selection and the earnings of immigrants this paper analyzes the way in which the earnings of the immigrant population may be expected to differ from the earnings of the native population because of the endogeneity of the decision to migrate the empirical study shows that differences in the u s earnings of immigrants with the same measured skills but from different home countries are attributable to variations in political and economic conditions in the countries of origin at the time of migration excerpt

value diversity and regional economic development we investigate the link between culture and regional economic development within european countries considering a variety of cultural values we provide evidence that it is the degree of diversity in these values at the regional level that strongly correlates with economic performance rather than the prevalence of specific values in particular we show that greater value diversity is negatively associated with regional economic performance within countries which also relates to lower institutional quality and poorer public goods provision these patterns are robust even when diversity is measured based on values expressed by emigrants residing outside of their region of origin this article is protected by copyright all rights reserved

human capital investment and migration in an integrated europe the short and longer term regional consequences of migration for european aggregate supply are examined in a simple model in which human capital enters the production function externally the planner chooses a reallocation of population across east and west that cannot be replicated by the market without taxes or subsidies the market solution in this model with free migration is always associated with an efficiency loss and might lead to the mezzogiorno syndrome in the east excerpt

immigration and wages evidence from construction to identify relative wage impacts of immigration we make use of certification and licensing requirements in the norwegian construction sector that give rise to exogenous variation in immigrant employment shares across trades individual panel data reveal substantially lower wage growth for workers in trades with rising immigrant employment than for other workers selective attrition from the sector masks the causal wage impact unless accounted for by individual fixed effects for low and semi skilled workers effects of new immigration are comparable for natives and older immigrant cohorts consistent with perfect substitutability between native and immigrant labor within trade finally we present evidence that immigration reduces price inflation as price increases over the sample period were significantly lower in activities with growth in the immigrant share than in activities with no or small change in immigrant employment

exploitable predictable irrationality the fifa world cup effect on the u s stock market in a recently published paper edmans garcia and norli 2007 reveal a strong association between results of soccer games and local stock returns inspired by their work we propose a novel approach to exploit this effect on the aggregate international level with the following three unique features i the aggregate effect does not depend on the games results hence the effect is an exploitable predictable effect ii the aggregate effect is based on many games hence it is very large and highly significant we find that the average return on the u s market over the world cup s effect period is 2 58 compared to 1 21 for all days average returns over the same period length iii exploiting the aggregate effect is involved with trading in a single index for a relatively long period

the effect of naturalization on wage growth a panel study of young male immigrants for young male immigrants naturalization facilitates assimilation into the u s labor market following naturalization immigrants gain access to public sector white collar and union jobs and wage growth accelerates consistent with removal of employment barriers the faster wage growth of immigrants who naturalize might alternatively result from greater human capital investment prior to naturalization stemming from a long term commitment to u s labor markets but there is no evidence that wage growth accelerates or the distribution of jobs improves until citizenship is attained finally the gains from naturalization are greater for immigrants from less developed countries and persist when we control for unobserved productivity

nonsecular regularities in returns and volume this study addressed u s stock daily returns and volume around days when the market is open that correspond to religious or cultural occasions specifically st patrick s day and the jewish high holy days of rosh hashanah and yom kippur on rosh hashanah and yom kippur volume was found to be down relative to volume on all trading days in the sample the reason may be that the nonfinancial opportunity cost of trading is high for a considerable number of traders on these days returns were significantly higher on the days preceding st patrick s day and rosh hashanah which is consistent with the notion that market returns reflect the festive nature of these occasions evidence was also found of significantly negative returns after yom kippur in the second half of the sample period which accords with the idea that the market reflects the solemn nature of this occasion overall the results are consistent with the view that mood is a viable explanation for some market movements

coming out of the shadows learning about legal status and wages from the legalized population the 1986 immigration reform and control act irca granted amnesty to approximately 1 7 million long term unauthorized workers in an effort to bring them out of the shadows and improve their labor market opportunities an analysis of wages using panel data for a sample of legalized men provides evidence that wage determinants are structurally different after amnesty for them but not for the comparison group as measured during the same time periods the wage penalty for being unauthorized is estimated to range from 14 to 24 the wage benefit of legalization under irca was approximately 6

stock return comovement around the dow jones islamic market world index revisions we examine patterns of comovement in stock returns around the dow jones islamic market world index djimwi quarterly revision events our analysis is based on a sample of 8250 companies from eighteen countries during the period may 1999 june 2012 we find that a stock s comovement with the djimwi increases when it joins and decreases when it leaves the index we also find that the comovement of newly added deleted stocks with the existing djimwi constituents increases declines during periods of high trading activity and during the month of ramadan further tests reveal that changes in the fundamentals have no impact on the comovements of added and deleted stocks overall our results indicate that stock returns respond to the emotional state of investors around information free events

why did the west extend the franchise democracy inequality and growth in historical perspective during the nineteenth century most western societies extended voting rights a decision that led to unprecedented redistributive programs we argue that these political reforms can be viewed as strategic decisions by the political elite to prevent widespread social unrest and revolution political transition rather than redistribution under existing political institutions occurs because current transfers do not ensure future transfers while the extension of the franchise changes future political equilibria and acts as a commitment to redistribution our theory also offers a novel explanation for the kuznets curve in many western economies during this period with the fall in inequality following redistribution due to democratization i introduction the nineteenth century was a period of fundamental political reform and unprecedented changes in taxation and redistribution britain for example was transformed from an oligarchy run by an elite to a democracy the franchise was extended in 1832 and then again in 1867 and 1884 transferring voting rights to portions of the society with no previous political representation the decades after the political reforms witnessed radical social reforms increased taxation and the extension of education to the masses moreover as noted by kuznets inequality which was previously increasing started to decline during this period the gini coefficient for income inequality in england and wales had risen from 0 400 in 1823 to 0 627 in 1871 but fell to 0 443 in 1901 two key factors in the reduction in inequality were the increase in the proportion of skilled workers williamson 1985 and the redistribution of income toward the poorer segments of the society for example taxes rose from 8 12 percent of national product in 1867 to 18 8 percent by 1927 and the progressivity of the tax system increased substantially see lindert 1989

guns butter and openness on the relationship between security and trade sovereign states arm to defend real or hypothetical interests presumably because they cannot engage in complete long term contracting that would prevent such arming international trade therefore takes place within an essentially anarchic context and we can expect trade regimes and security policies to be related indeed many embargoes sanctions and various other forms of trade restrictions that have been used throughout history and continue to be used today can be considered extensions of security policies whereas some security policies can be attributed to trade policy the relationship between trade and security however has been barely explored within economics we could fairly characterize the prevailing view within the discipline as the classical liberal view according to which the expansion of international trade does not just increase the welfare of the trading partners but can also patch up any differences they might have over other contentious issues solomon polachek 1980 represents a rare articulation of this widely held perspective more boldly it could be argued that the expansion of trade always alleviates conflict by forcing the adoption of measures that manage conflict nevertheless one does not need to dig much into history to show that while trade and economic interdependence can contribute to the peaceful resolution of disputes they are not sufficient by themselves to guarantee the absence of war and the reduction of arming many observers before world war i for example considered that the hitherto unprecedented expansion of trade and interdependence between britain and germany made war unthinkable and impossible yet war occurred and with much ferocity and destruction furthermore as donald kagan 1995 pp 373 80 has argued the british policy of appeasement toward germany during the 1930 s was based on similar arguments about the use of economic caltots to avoid war what can inter

the immigration of third world professionals to canada 1968 1973 abstract in this paper we estimate a reduced form equation for highly skilled immigration to canada during the period 1968 1973 the purported open immigration policy during this period implied that a relatively unregulated flow of immigrants came to canada we found to the contrary that the third world immigrant flow was carefully regulated and responded significantly to four principal variables the number of job vacancies by occupation competing opportunities in the united states the total flow of third world immigrants and the number of movers from the country under consideration the income variable never proved significant

immigrants in the u s labor market 1940 80 this paper explores the extent and causes of the decline in immigrant skills in the united states during the postwar period prior to 1965 immigration to the united states was guided by the national origins quota system this visa allocation system awarded visas to countries based on the representation of the national origin group in the u s population as of 1920 the 1965 amendments abolished the national origins formula thus redistributing visas across source countries and established a system where visas are mainly given to relatives of u s citizens or residents the empirical analysis shows that a single factor the changing national origin mix of the immigrant flow is mainly responsible for the decline in immigrant skills excerpt

motivations of south african emigrants reasons for emigration from south africa particularly of professionals are investigated using data from a recent survey the authors conclude that although direct fear of potential violence is not a major factor emigrants are concerned about changes in living standards resulting from economic problems or changes in government structure annotation

new evidence on the economic progress of foreign born men in the 1970s and 1980s this study examines the economic progress of foreign born men in the united states europeans entered the united states with relatively high wages and earned wages comparable to natives over their life course japanese korean and chinese men entered with lower wages but quickly caught up with u s born workers mexicans and central americans entered with low wages and the wage gap between themselves and u s born workers has not shrunk disparities in completed years of education and whether education was received in the united states can explain a large share of the differences in the level of wages for immigrants from some countries it is found that more highly educated men assimilate more quickly the rate of economic progress has not improved for more recent arrivals from any country but this is most problematic among mexicans and central americans because of their relatively low rates of wage growth excerpt

factor rewards and the international migration of unskilled labor a model with capital mobility abstract conventional economic wisdom holds that the migration of unskilled labor from less developed countries to neighboring developed countries should be expected to narrow the wage gap between those countries and thereby reduce the incentive for further migration if capital is mobile internationally this reasoning may be inappropriate instead emigration of unskilled labor out of the less developed country provides an incentive for capital to leave the country too as a consequence wage rates move in the same direction in each country and the gap between wage rates across countries even may increase

job search and immigrant assimilation an earnings frontier approach this study examines labor market assimilation by measuring the information utilized by immigrants during job search assimilation is assumed to occur whenever such information increases with length of residence in the united states and repeated job searches the authors assert that information utilized during job search reduces differentials between actual and potential maximum attainable earnings coauthors are henry w herzog jr richard a hofler and alan m schlottmann copyright 1992 by mit press

the parallel market of illegal aliens a computational approach abstract this paper develops the notion of illegal aliens as a parallel market in coexistence with the regular market of legal labor in the presence of both price controls on legal labor by minimum wage legislation and quantity controls on illegal aliens by immigration laws illegal aliens involve not only rural urban migration but also tax evasion and deportation costs we develop an analytical equilibrium structure which links markets for legal labor and illegal aliens illustrate how much an equilibrium can be computed and explore some implications of the linkage using united states data

migrants intentions to return home and capital transfers a study of tongans and samoans in australia this article examines the attributes of migrants from the pacific island states of tonga and samoa living in australia to assess the extent to which return migrants could contribute to the human and physical capital stock of the migrant sending countries it also examines the impact of intention to return on remittances and asset accumulation the study finds that very few migrants plan to return home and very little evidence that those who plan to return embody significant human capital education experience and skills intention to return may be important nevertheless since those who plan to return remit significantly more than those that do not and also accumulate far more physical capital at home than those that do not intend to return

the use of transfer payments by immigrants this paper uses data from the 1976 survey of income and education to compare the receipt of transfers by families headed by male and female immigrants and those headed by native born americans the average level of transfers is found to be considerably higher among families headed by immigrants but this is almost entirely the result of the higher average age of family members among the immigrant group a reflection of the large inflows of immigrants into the u s during the pre 1924 period when age and other factors are held constant immigrant families are found to be considerably less likely to rely on welfare than native families and their receipts from social insurance programs are found to be only slightly higher

swords or plowshares a theory of the security of claims to property this paper develops a general equilibrium model of the allocation of resources among appropriative and productive activities the model emphasizes the distinction between offensive weapons which are the instruments of predation and fortifications which provide defense against predation the analysis of this model shows how the equilibrium security of claims to property is determined the analysis focuses on the possibility of a nonaggressive equilibrium in which no resources are allocated to offensive weapons and claims to property are fully secure we also analyze the complex relation between economic welfare and the security of claims to property we find for example that a relatively poor agent could be better off in an equilibrium with less secure claims to property

hysteresis and the earnings of immigrants in the united states labour market the paper analyses the role of hysteresis in explaining the slow wage convergence between certain immigrant groups and native workers using the 1990 integrated public use microdata samples ipums the analysis reveals that past earnings history in the country of origin has a relatively smaller effect on post migration earnings when compared to past earnings history in the us in addition the paper suggests that the earnings history in the country of origin is more productive in the us labour market for immigrants from advanced economies as compared to those from less developed countries in particular we find that us labour market does not value the past earnings history of mexican immigrants as high as that of other ethnic groups with similar socioeconomic characteristics across successive cohorts

productivity of highly skilled immigrants economists in the postwar period larry d singell jr prior work finds declining immigrant quality in the postwar period that is linked to source country and skill composition changes associated with the 1965 immigration act this paper uses a unique panel of foreign and native born american economic association members to show that the highly skilled experienced a similar shift away from european migrants toward those from asia however the findings do not indicate that this change in source country composition has been accompanied by a decline in quality rather the most recent cohorts of foreign born economists appear to be more productive than their native counterparts jel j61 i introduction this article is the first systematic analysis of the attributes and abilities of foreign born u s economists since a descriptive study of the brain drain by grubel and scott 1967 it also provides some of the first formal evidence for the largely theoretical proposition in earlier work by bhagwati and rodriquez 1975 that the united states draws the best skilled workers from abroad however recent immigration literature has not focused on the brain drain but has generated considerable debate concerning whether the 1965 immigration and nationality act has reduced the skill quality of u s immigrants in particular descriptive evidence in borjas 1987 and greenwood 1983 respectively indicates that the 1965 law shifted the composition of u s immigrants toward non european nations and increased the number of low skilled migrants to the united states our article extends this work by examining whether there has been a post 1965 change in the source country mix of ph d economists and whether such chan ges impact the productivity of the foreign born in comparison to their native counterparts most empirical studies of immigrant productivity have focused on earnings early cross sectional studies of immigrant earnings including chiswick 1978a concluded that the age earnings profile of immigrants is steeper than that of comparable native born workers and though initially lower crosses the native profile 10 to 15 years after immigration these results are consistent with the widely held belief that the immigration process self selects the highly motivated and industrious from their respective source countries thus immigrants although they initially enter the united states with relatively low levels of human capital eventually become more productive than their native counterparts more recent work by borjas 1985 1987 has contested these conclusions arguing that it is not possible to separately identify assimilation and cohort effects using a single cross sectional data set in particular the positive correlation between earnings and years since migration in cross sectional data may be due to immigrant assimilation or a cohort effect that arises from the declining skill quality of more recent immigrant groups borjas combines multiple cross sectional data sets to separately identify assimilation and cohort effects and finds evidence indicating that earlier cohorts of immigrants do relatively better than both natives and more recent immigrant cohorts suggesting a decline in immigrant quality although chiswick 1986 challenges the contention of declining immigrant quality and funkhouser and trejo 1995 find evidence that immigrant quality may have increased during the 1980s borjas 1995 contends that the empirical evidence consistently shows that immigrant quality has declined for most of the postwar period however the decline in immigrant quality has not necessarily been found within specific groups of immigrants in particular greenwood and mcdowell 1986 find that the change in skill quality is related to the shift in the source country composition of immigrants away from european nations toward those from asia and latin american after the 1965 immigration act thus explanations for the relatively poor performance of recent immigrants including those in lalonde and topel 1991 1992 and borjas 1992 focus on the post 1965 changes in the incentives to migrate to the united states that have increased the number of low skilled non european immigrants

volume and turn of the year behavior abstract this paper studies the trading characteristics of listed companies by size and year end behavior there were no transactions on nearly 25 of the days for the smallest decile even at the turn of year which is an active trading period for small companies as a result of low levels of trading and the regulations governing exchange specialists transaction prices and quotations of small listed companies may require several days to fully reflect equilibrium price changes the data confirm the existence of a year end seasonal pattern in rates of return for small companies and suggest that there may be a seasonal pattern for large companies as well

an economic model of the brain drain asymmetric information in the labor market is discussed as a major cause of the exodus of foreign trained students from developing countries the authors suggest that employers in the country in which the students have been trained have a more accurate judgment of the true productivity of students than have employers in the students native country an illustrative numerical model is developed and its implications are analyzed annotation

why are rich countries more politically cohesive we document empirically that rich countries are more politically cohesive than poorer countries in order to explain this regularity we provide a model where political cohesion is linked to the emergence of a fully functioning market economy without market exchange the welfare of inherently selfish individuals will be mutually independent whoever has greater bargaining power will be willing to make decisions that enhance the productivity of their supporters at the expense of other groups in society if the gains from specialization are sufficiently large however a market economy will emerge from being essentially non cohesive under self sufficiency the political decision making process becomes cohesive in the market economy because the welfare of individuals will be mutually interdependent as a result of the exchange of goods

the work effort and the consumption of immigrants as a function of their assimilation positive self selection has been used to explain the superior economic performance of some immigrant groups even if immigrants and natives are identical however the former face different incentives in particular they bear costs not incurred by natives including monetary costs of moving costs of staying in touch with family and obligations to those left behind nonmonetary costs include stress and loss of location specific human capital the focus of this paper is on how these costs influence the decisions of immigrants relative to those of natives particular attention is given to the role of assimilation

a political economic analysis of labor migration and income redistribution we present a two country political economic model of income redistribution with internationally mobile labor migration can be exogenous and or endogenous i e determined by labor income differentials political influence is determined by the size and homogeneity of the groups where the latter can be affected by immigration we show that immigration can increase the transfers to and the income of the mobile group we also investigate the possibility of migration regulation tax transfer policy competition and coordination and finally coordination of regulation policies it is shown that the selection of any of those regimes will depend on the particular distribution of political influence among the relevant social groups in the two countries