measuring the efficiency of energy intensive industries across european countries abstract this study evaluates the energy efficiency trends of five energy intensive industries in 23 european union eu countries over the period 2000 2009 in particular the performance of the construction electricity manufacturing mining and quarrying and transport sectors is examined the analysis is based on data envelopment analysis dea combined with the malmquist productivity index mpi which allows for distinctions between efficiency and technology changes over time at the second stage of the analysis cross classified multilevel modelling is applied to analyse the main drivers behind efficiency performance using a number of sector and country characteristics based on dea results an overall improvement in efficiency is observed in all sectors over the period the decomposition of the mpi indicates that technology change is primarily responsible for the improvements achieved in most sectors the results obtained by the cross classified model show among other things that the high electricity prices energy taxes and market share of the largest generator in the electricity market have a negative effect on industrial energy efficiency

evaluating the economic impact of international remittances on developing countries using household surveys a literature review abstract this literature review covers 50 recent empirical studies of the economic impact of international remittances on the developing world that are based on household survey data it begins by reviewing the considerable methodological problems confronting economic work on international remittances and then examines the strengths and weaknesses of various economic studies of the impact of remittances in the developing world on such outcomes as poverty and inequality health and education investment and savings labour supply and participation and economic growth it finds that while international remittances generally have a positive impact on poverty and health in the developing world remittances can have negative effects on labour supply education and economic growth

enterprises compliance with government carbon reduction labelling policy using a system dynamics approach abstract a carbon reduction labelling scheme is an effective policy tool for motivating enterprises or organizations to reduce their life cycle based carbon emissions to benefit the environment this paper uses system dynamics to model enterprises compliance with a combined government policy instrument for a carbon reduction labelling scheme that is government subsidies and economic sanctions a case study of paper enterprises in china is provided to demonstrate the application of the proposed model in which two optional technological plans to reduce the enterprises carbon emissions are examined the technological plans are categorized as a low cost and high cost plan the simulation results show that both the technological plans are vulnerable to the combined policy making and the high cost plan shows superior environmental performance for carbon emissions reduction however the enterprises are more inclined to choose the low cost plan because of superior economic performance the study offers insights to help enterprises select optimal actions on carbon emissions reduction and to inform government of possible sustainable policy design to promote low carbon development the model limitations are discussed as a basis for further improvements in low carbon development

the impacts of international migration on remaining household members omnibus results from a migration lottery program this brief summarizes the results of a gender impact evaluation study entitled the impacts of international migration on remaining household members omnibus results from a migration lottery program conducted in 2002 in tonga the study observed the impact of migration lottery program on the remaining household members of tongan emigrants on the individual and intra household level income falls rapidly by 22 to 25 percent with a rise in remittances failing to offset a large fall in labor earnings ownership of livestock durable and access to financial services is lower for the remaining household members diets change to be less nutritious and more rice and root crops immigration has a negative impact on household size there is no significant impact of migration on labor supply for men nor women funding for the study derived from the world bank stanford university the waikato management school and mardsen fund

extending a lifeline or cutting losses the effects of conflict on household receipts of remittances in pakistan summary i examine the causal effects of long term exposure to conflict measured at the micro level on households receipt of remittances among households residing in areas affected by the 2010 floods in pakistan using a dataset of 7802 households representative of all flood affected areas of pakistan in 2010 i employ iv estimation to overcome the endogeneity of conflict exposure and remittance receipts and control for a range of confounding factors i find that contrary to the literature from country level case studies long term exposure to conflict reduces households likelihood of receiving any remittances at all as well as the average amounts of remittances received however for households in the lowest food consumption expenditure quintile conflict has a positive effect on the likelihood of remittance receipts which provides evidence for the existence of heterogeneous effects as well as a significant micro macro gap in understanding the causal effects of conflict on remittance receipts

environmental regulation technological innovation and energy consumption a cross region analysis in china abstract china has encountered the environmental issues and energy pressures in the middle income stage strengthening environmental regulation is a crucial measure to prevent environment deterioration and energy dilemma this paper investigates the three types of environmental regulations on energy consumption using feasible generalized least squares method during 1997 2015 in direct and indirect path the main conclusions are as follows in the direct path the economical and supervised types of environmental regulations have inhibited energy consumption whilst legal environmental regulation has no significant impact as for indirect path the rebound effect of energy is greater than the energy conservation generated by technological innovation which is embodied as an inhibitory effect the effects of environmental regulation display regional difference the legal and supervised types of environmental regulations have significant cost effect and rebound effect on energy consumption in the entire samples on the contrary the economical environmental regulation shows the opposite sigh in eastern regions the counterfactual simulation results show that the net effects of environmental regulations on energy consumption are negative which is beneficial for relieving energy pressures based on the findings this paper provides pertinent policy implications

the energy transition of the transition economies an empirical analysis the aggregate manufacturing energy intensity of 28 countries in eastern europe and central asia had declined by 35 percent during 1998 2008 this study reveals strong evidence of convergence less efficient countries improved more rapidly and the cross country variance in energy productivity narrowed over time an index decomposition analysis indicates that energy intensities declined largely because of more efficient energy use rather than shifts from energy intensive to less intensive manufacturing activities income growth and energy price increases were the main drivers of the convergence they dominated the impact of trade which led to specialization in energy intensive industries

entrepreneurship selection and performance a meta analysis of the impact of education in developing economies this meta analytical review of empirical studies of the impact of schooling on entrepreneurship in selection and performance in developing economies looks at variations impact across specific characteristics of the studies a marginal year of schooling in developing economies raises enterprise income by an average of 5 5 percent which is close to the average return in industrial countries the return varies however by gender rural or urban residence and the share of agriculture in the economy furthermore more educated workers typically end up in wage employment and prefer nonfarm entrepreneurship to farming the education effect that separates workers into self employment and wage employment is stronger for women possibly stronger in urban areas and also stronger in the least developed economies where agriculture is more dominant and literacy rates are lower

predatory versus productive government the case of u s agricultural policies this essay will argue that agricultural policy in the united states has led to both the enhancement of efficiency through productive policies and the transfer of wealth and income to special interests through redistributive or predatory policies these two activities can be labeled as pests and perts pest policies or political economic seeking transfers are meant to redistribute wealth from one social group to another and are not explicitly concerned with efficiency in contrast perts or political economic resource transactions are intended to correct market failures or to provide public goods these policies have neutral distributional effects at least in design a review of the history of public policy in agriculture reveals not only tension between the pert and pest roles of the public sector but also some coordination between these two types of activities as different interest groups pressure the political process the government trades off pests and perts in its attempts to acquire balance and secure political power at times this has led to combinations of programs that appear incoherent in such a world the challenge for economists is to design and advocate policies that are both economically productive and politically sustainable

market related reforms and increased energy efficiency in transition countries empirical evidence energy efficiency improvement is a desirable response to growing climate change and security of energy supply concerns this article studies the impacts of a varied set of macro level market oriented reforms as well as structural change on economy wide measure of energy efficiency across a group of the transition countries these countries experienced a rapid marketization process which since the early 1990s transformed their economies from central planning towards market driven models we use a bias corrected fixed effect analysis technique to estimate this effect for the period 1990 to 2010 the results suggest that reforms aimed at market liberalization financial sector and most infrastructure industries drove energy efficiency improvements we find significant differences in improvements in energy efficiency between transitional central european and baltic states south east europe ones and the commonwealth of independent states the reasons for these differences are also discussed

remittances investment and rural asset accumulation in pakistan internal and external migration can have a profound impact on rural asset accumulation in most third world countries in many african asian and latin american countries the bulk of the labor force still lives in the countryside in these countries the large difference between expected rural and urban or foreign incomes coupled with the risk reducing functions of migration causes workers to migrate either to urban centers or abroad the remittances defined as the money or goods sent home by migrant workers can have a large effect on the accumulation of assets in these rural areas for example an inflow of external remittances to rural households at the upper end of the income distribution could increase land accumulation by the rich in general terms the effect of remittances on asset accumulation in a rural third world economy depends on answers to three questions a who migrates b how much net income do migrants remit and c what are the marginal effects of these remittances on household consumption and investment because of data limitations in this article i propose to examine only the first and the third questions other researchers have addressed the second issue in the past surprisingly little attention has been focused on the question of the marginal effects of remittances on household consumption and investment in the rural third world this inattention has been due to three considerable methodological problems the first is fungibility because remittances are like any other form of cash income it is difficult to associate this income source with any particular changes in household expenditure behavior the second problem relates to the multiple round effects of remittances on the local economy for example an inflow of remittances into a rural area may lead to a surge in expenditures in housing which may in turn create new income and employment opportunities for the poor and unskilled unfortunately however few studies have

remittances and the dutch disease abstract using data for el salvador and bayesian techniques we develop and estimate a two sector dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model to analyze the effects of remittances on emerging market economies we find that whether altruistically motivated or otherwise an increase in remittance flows leads to a decline in labor supply and an increase in consumption demand that is biased toward non tradables the higher non tradable prices serve as incentive for an expansion of that sector culminating in reallocation of labor away from the tradable sector a phenomenon known as the dutch disease quantitative results also indicate that remittances improve the welfare of households because they smooth income flows and increase consumption and leisure levels a bvar analysis provides results that are consistent with the dynamics of the model

all displaced workers are not created equal the political economy of worker adjustment assistance in france this paper analyzes the political economy of adjustment assistance benefits paid to selected groups of displaced workers several competing theories of income redistribution are discussed including social insurance motives and political support motives a dichotomy laid out by hillman 1988 and baldwin 1989 the becker 1983 hypothesis concerning the role of dead weight loss factors is addressed based on descriptive and empirical analysis of an original french data set it is argued that the politico economic characteristics that render an industry and its workforce more likely to receive these benefits are those associated with the olson 1982 model of the logic of collective action some evidence is found however that social insurance factors play a partial role the pattern of income redistribution does not appear to be strongly influenced by the deadweight loss factors that becker stresses

energy savings in nigeria is there a way of escape from energy inefficiency abstract this study estimates the transition probabilities for different energy use states in nigeria using the markov switching regression technique according to the results both energy efficient and energy inefficient states are less persistent but comparatively the energy inefficient state is more persistent thus in nigeria it is much difficult to escape from the energy inefficient state than the energy efficient state several reasons may explain this phenomenon and they include inefficient regulatory system poor institutional structure high corruption proliferation of second hand goods undeveloped markets high incidence of poverty and inefficient pricing in the energy sector pricing policies should be combined with institutional improvement and infrastructural development if nigeria wants to achieve a sustainable energy efficient state in the long term

controlling for the underreporting of remittances empirical studies that use self reported data on remittances to measure the latter s impact on microeconomic incentives mostly ignore the potential errors associated with reporting measurement issues an econometric procedure to control for these errors is developed and applied to household level data from armenia we find evidence of systematic underreporting of remittances after controlling for this we find a strong negative impact of remittances on incentives to work

energy consumption and energy r d in oecd perspectives from oil prices and economic growth abstract we estimate the short run and long run elasticities of various types of energy consumption and energy r d to changes in oil prices and income of the 20 oecd countries over the period of 1980 2010 using the nerlove partial adjustment model npam we find negative income elasticity for coal consumption but positive income elasticity for oil and gas consumption suggesting the importance of economic growth in encouraging the usage of cleaner energy from coal to oil and gas by introducing time dummies into the regressions we show that climatic mitigation policies are able to promote the usage of cleaner energies through the dynamic linkages between energy consumption and energy r d we find that fossil fuel consumption promotes fossil fuel r d and fossil fuel r d in turn drives its own consumption renewable energy r d which is more responsive to economic growth reduces fossil fuel consumption and hence fossil fuel r d

industrial structure energy saving regulations and energy intensity evidence from chinese cities abstract exploring the drivers of declining energy intensity is necessary in order to accelerate the transition to a low carbon economy in china to date studies have typically adopted case analysis to link enterprise features and energy saving performance the impact of internal industrial configuration in terms of size and ownership structure on aggregate energy intensity remains to be examined to fill this research gap this paper tests the impact of the internal structure of industries on city level energy intensity by employing a unique panel dataset of 283 cities for the period 2005 to 2010 the driscoll kraay method and instrumental variable are used to treat residual cross sectional dependence and endogeneity respectively results suggest that small scale enterprises exerts a negative effect on energy intensity a 1 increase in the output value proportion of small sized firms will lead to a decrease in total energy intensity of 0 067 in contrast the same change by medium enterprises will raise energy intensity by 0 031 a negative and or non significant coefficient suggests that for most energy intensive large and state owned enterprises china s 2006 top down energy saving regulation has been quite effective in targeting key energy intensive enterprises in china the findings reveal that state owned enterprises soes can act as promoters of rather than barriers to low carbon policy implementation in china given that the effectiveness of energy saving regulation will be undermined as a result of diluted regulatory strength in each enterprise market oriented energy price reform is proposed as a fundamental driver for guaranteeing a continual decline in energy intensity

childhood obesity in mexico the effect of international migration this article estimates the effect of international migration from mexico to the united states on the obesity status of children who remain in mexico theory suggests that increased liquidity as well as changing time allocations resulting from migration may influence obesity outcomes natural disasters are used as an identification strategy results suggest that older boys in urban areas are more likely to become obese when either a male or female migrates from the household while girls in urban areas are less likely to become obese both changes in food expenditure patterns and time use changes after migration are likely pathways that affect childhood obesity while there are some changes in food expenditures we find more importantly that urban girls engage in more housework and screen time after migration whereas urban teen boys do not substitute for adult work as much as girls these changes in strenuous activities particularly for girls likely explain the differential effect that migration has on boys and girls obesity outcomes in mexico

non contractible investments and vertical integration in the mexican footwear industry abstract this paper examines patterns of integration among manufacturers and retailers using data from a survey of footwear manufacturers in mexico the property rights framework developed in papers by grossman and hart 1986 j polit econ 94 691 and hart and moore 1990 j polit econ 98 1119 is differentiated from the standard empirical transactions cost framework in the context of this industry the most relevant distinction between the two frameworks is that the property rights framework addresses both the benefits and costs of integration while the transactions cost framework focuses only on variation in the benefits of integration we show that the costs of integration are highest where the retailer s non contractible investment has an important effect on the overall profits from the relationship consistent with the property rights framework the data suggest that integration is less likely in these circumstances

why did the energy intensity fall in china s industrial sector in the 1990s the relative importance of structural change and intensity change there have been a variety of studies investigating the relative importance of structural change and real intensity change to the change in china s energy consumption in the 1980s however no detailed analysis to date has been done to examine whether or not the increased energy efficiency trend in the 1980s still prevailed in the 1990s this article has filled this gap by investigating the change in energy consumption in china s industrial sector in the 1990s based on the data sets of value added and end use energy consumption for the 29 industrial subsectors and using the newly proposed decomposition method of giving no residual our results clearly show that the overwhelming contributor to the decline in industrial energy use in the 1990s was the decline in real energy intensity indicating that the trend of real energy intensity declines in the 1980s at the 2 digit level was still maintained in the 1990s this conclusion still holds even if we lower the growth rate dramatically in line with the belief that the growth rate of china s gdp may be overestimated

remittances monetary policy and partial sterilization author affiliation diego e vacaflores dv13 txstate edu acknowledgment the author thanks dennis w jansen for his insightful contributions and continuous guidance i also thank the editor kent kimbrough and two anonymous referees for their valuable comments and suggestions 1 introductionremittances have increased over the last several decades international estimates of official remittance flows suggest that the total amount of worker remittances have increased to us 300 billion in 2010 inter american development bank 2012 this increase may in part be attributed to the rapid growth of money transfer institutions which has reduced the average transaction cost and has made them more visible however it may also be indicative of an actual increase in these monetary transfers due to increased migration flows which now represent approximately 45 of net private capital flows to developing countries the importance of remittances for remittances receiving developing countries does not just come from their size but mainly from its potential and actual effects on both the society and the individual remittances affect labor market decisions school retention export sector competitiveness and financial deepening funkhouser 1992 glytsos 2002 cox edwards and ureta 2003 amuedo dorantes and pozo 2004 chami fullenkamp and jahjah 2005 giuliano and ruiz arranz 2009 in terms of consumption remittance flows have gone from satisfying basic needs to providing a vast array of durable goods for recipient households they can thus potentially promote economic growth and development through higher domestic demand if motivated by altruism or through enhanced productive capacity if motivated by self interest most of the literature on remittances focuses on the microeconomic implication of such flows for the sender and for the receiver of these funds on the basis of survey data this trend in the literature has examined the motivations to remit such as contractual arrangements altruism repayment of migration costs and so on and the uses of these funds in the home country e g for education health care entrepreneurial initiatives social works etc at the macro level the literature on the impact of remittances on the recipient country is sparse but growing as researchers realize that it could have important effects on the overall economy however economists have overlooked the examination of the potential influence that higher levels of remittances can have on the implementation of monetary policy and thus its understanding is still limited since remittances provide a secondary income to households they would affect decisions with respect to labor supply and consumption which can alter the effectiveness of monetary policy when this additional income is a significant portion of a household s income additionally although domestic governments usually try to sterilize capital flows to sustain a given policy the high levels of informality in some developing countries and the significant portion of remittances that continue to flow through informal channels make monetary targeting problematic given these potential complications monetary policy could potentially have a differential impact depending on the remittances share of gdp and fluctuations in remittances can affect the amount of money in circulation and therefore economic performance accounting for such influences thus became imperative for stabilization policy this study examines the potentially different impact that monetary policy can have on output depending on the relative share of remittances as a percentage of gdp and the differential effect that remittances shocks can have on the main macroeconomic aggregates when economies do not fully sterilize such inflows channels never explored before it builds on the theoretical model developed by jansen vacaflores and naufal 2010 explicitly incorporating remittances in a small open economy framework and is able to show that monetary policy has a differential effect on output depending on the relative size of these remittances

the influential factors of china s regional energy intensity and its spatial linkages 1988 2007 abstract a large amount of literature on china s energy intensity seldom considers the regional differences of energy intensity inside china and the spatial effects based on spatial statistics methods this paper explores the regional imbalance of china s provincial energy intensity and the spatially correlation of energy intensity among provinces using spatial panel data models this paper finds that gdp per capita transportation infrastructure the level of marketization and scientific and technological input significantly reduce the energy intensity the ratio of heavy industries to total industries and the ratio of coal consumption to total energy consumption significantly expand the energy intensity meanwhile the coefficient of the ratio of export to gdp is not significant then the spillover and convergence of china s regional energy intensity have been tested the results indicate that the spillover effect between the eastern and western china is remarkable and there exist absolute convergence of provincial energy intensity moreover gdp per capita transportation infrastructure the level of marketization and scientific technological input are conducive to conditional convergence after the spatial effects are controlled according to the empirical results this paper proposes some policy suggestions on reducing china s energy intensity

the energy intensity of transition countries the economies of central and eastern europe and the former soviet union have traditionally been very energy intensive energy intensity defined as energy use per gdp has decreased in the course of transition but progress has been uneven and most transition countries still use several times as much energy per unit of output as their western peers this paper decomposes energy data to identify the main factors behind the improvements in energy intensity it shows that energy prices and progress in enterprise restructuring are the two most important drivers for more efficient energy use

projecting the energy pathway using a methodological sequence the case of mexico abstract the relationship between primary energy and economic development tends to be positive however it is a complex relationship for emerging economies we use the energy pathway ep method to 1 examine this relationship 2 introduce its behavioural taxonomy and 3 propose a hybrid methodological sequence that allows to examine the historical context and to forecast the ep we apply our methodology to the mexican case an emerging economy that has had both energy intensive and energy productivity periods and changes in its development model the study was conducted by using data of a 52 year old path and explored the path may have from 2018 onwards our results are as follows first the pathway shows nine behavioural possibilities second we found that the mexican ep responds to structural changes we conclude that for the years following 2018 mexico s path will have a disturbance the main objective will be to avoid unwanted behaviour the key is to improve the relationships among the government the private sector and international agreements in order to continue the sequence of the theory on the relations between energy and development more studies are needed under a systematic analytical framework applied to both other countries and comparative studies

are international remittances altruism or insurance evidence from guyana using multiple migrant households abstract while international remittances provide significant disposable income for many households in less developed countries there is no consensus on migrants remittance motivation two principal competing explanations for remittances are altruism and risk sharing this paper employs previously unanalyzed data to bring new evidence to the debate we develop a simple theoretical model that yields distinct testable predictions for each motivation among the model s testable predictions is differential remittance behavior by migrants from households with multiple versus single migrants under altruism and risk sharing our estimation finds significant differences in remittance behavior of multiple and single migrants and these differences support the altruistic incentive to remit

remittances liquidity constraints and human capital investments in ecuador summary over the last decade ecuador has experienced a strong increase in financial transfers from migrated workers this paper investigates how remittances via trans national networks affect human capital investments through relaxing resource constraints and facilitate households in consumption smoothing by reducing vulnerability to economic shocks our results show that remittances increase school enrollment and decrease incidence of child work especially for girls and in rural areas furthermore we find that aggregate shocks are associated with increased work activities while remittances are used to finance education when households are faced with these shocks 2008 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

motivations to remit evidence from botswana in this article a theory of motivations to send remittances is described and tested with data from botswana altruism is one of the motivations tested and found to be an insufficient explanation for remittances among migrants in botswana a refinement of the model stipulates a modified altruism or enlightened self interest in this model the relationship between the migrant and family is tempered by an implicit understanding of mutual benefit the household strategy may be to encourage some members to migrate as a means of spreading risk and sharing gains the household strategy is similar to an insurance policy where migration is to places where market potential is high the risks incurred might be high the example is given of migration during a drought in botswana migrant remittances were greater in households with more cattle or households with more to lose drought alone was not statistically related to remittances increases in remittances were related to increased levels of education it is suggested that repayment was the motive for parents investment in migrants education migrants gains are identified as the potential for an inheritance the security of channeling investments through a trusted family member and security in having a home to return to it is pointed out that the altruism and family remittances from urban migration were strategies that bridged the simple dynamic of either urban development or rural development impacting on family welfare it is suggested that household models of economy adopt some measure to express the relationship of household wealth to remittances from urban migrants

workers remittances and the real exchange rate a paradox of gifts abstract we test the impact of workers remittances on the real exchange rate using a panel of 13 latin american and caribbean countries the analysis reveals that workers remittances have the potential to inflict economic costs on the export sector of receiving countries by reducing its international competitiveness our findings raise concerns parallel to those raised by dutch disease or resource boom models where resource discoveries result in real exchange rate appreciation and shifting of resources from the traded to the nontraded sectors of the economy

the effect of male migration on employment patterns of women in nepal what is the impact of male migration on the labor market behavior of women in nepal the instrumental variable full information maximum likelihood method is applied to data from the 2004 nepal household survey to account for unobserved factors that could simultaneously affect men s decision to migrate and women s decision to participate in the labor market the results indicate that male migration has a negative impact on the level of the labor market participation by women in the migrant sending household there is evidence of substantial heterogeneity based on both observable and unobservable characteristics in the impact of male migration the findings highlight the important gender dimension of the impact of predominantly male migration on the well being of sending households strategies for economic development in nepal should take into account such gender aspects of the migration dynamics

remittances entrepreneurship and employment dynamics over the business cycle abstract we incorporate remittances and micro entrepreneurship self employment into a small open economy business cycle model with capital and labor market frictions countercyclical remittances moderate the decline of households consumption during recessions these remittances also are used to finance the start up costs of microenterprises that bolster households income during economic downturns we show that the positive income effect from countercyclical remittances also leads to a decrease in salaried labor supply which generates offsetting upward pressure on wages during recessions and adversely affects the recovery of the economy consistent with the microeconomic evidence the behavior of remittances decisively affects labor force participation and the composition of employment between non salaried and salaried employment over the business cycle the model delivers labor market and aggregate cyclical dynamics that are consistent with the mexican data including a highly volatile and countercyclical unemployment rate

internet start ups access to the bank loan market evidence from italy the analysis of the bank sector s ability to efficiently fuel the birth of new italian business ventures in internet related services is studied in particular through the specification and the estimate of a series of econometric models this paper aims at investigating which characteristics of a large sample of internet start ups and their relative founders facilitate access to the loan market more precisely the role played by founders human capital as a possible significant signal used by banks to evaluate investment projects is addressed estimation results suggest that highly qualified human resources possessed by internet founders do not represent an important driver for gaining access to bank credit and they do not affect the amount of the incurred debt

migration from nicaragua some recent evidence abstract i utilize two unique data sources to examine migration from and remittance flows to the capital city of managua nicaragua approximately 10 12 of the population has emigrated these emigrants tend to be disproportionately of working age better educated and more often white collar workers than nonmigrants in addition emigrants are more likely to come from larger premigration households and higher income households remittance flows to managua are quite large the second largest source of foreign exchange earnings after coffee in addition remittances have a negative income effect on labor force participation and a positive effect on self employment of nonmigrants

migration networks and microenterprises in mexico are migration networks associated with lower capital costs or the alleviation of capital constraints we examine these questions with data measuring access to remittance flows among small scale entrepreneurs in mexico using a survey of more than 6000 self employed workers and small firm owners located in 44 urban areas of mexico we estimate the impact of attachment to migration networks on the level of capital investment the capital output ratio sales and profits of microenterprises the impact is identified from the geographic pattern of migration from mexico driven by the completion of rail lines in the early 1900s for the full sample of firms we find that migration is associated with higher investment levels and higher profits but not higher sales the strongest effects on investment are in the categories of automobiles tools and inventories when the sample is limited to firms in high capital sectors investment sales and profits all increase with attachment to the migration networks suggesting that attachment to the migration network alleviates capital constraints in those sectors

migrant remittances and fertility abstractthis study examines the role of migrants remittances in developing countries fertility transition employing an unbalanced panel of south asian countries and controlling for various economic and socio demographic factors we find that remittances are significantly associated with a lower number of children born to women of childbearing age this suggests the remittances substitution effect to be at play rather than the income effect and may result from decreased need for children for financing the household s future needs as well as from better access to healthcare and contraceptive methods available to migrant households remittances association with fertility appears to be more important than the transfer of fertility norms from migrants host countries the monetary aspects of international migration may therefore be more important for the region s demographic transition than social remittances

the political economy of ec protectionism national protectionism based on article 115 treaty of rome this paper investigates the trade policy of the ec based on art 115 treaty of rome it is shown that politicians and bureaucrats take advantage of the significant discretion the procedure allows political and bureaucratic self interest are the underlying motives for national trade barriers against non member countries based on art 115 the empirical results support this hypothesis

the roles of destination gender and household composition in explaining remittances an analysis for the dominican sierra two non exclusive hypotheses about what motivates remittances sent by dominican migrants to their rural parents in the sierra are tested a an insurance contract taken by parents with their migrant children and b an investment by migrants in potential bequests results show that the relative importance of these two motives to remit is affected by destination us vs cities in the dominican republic gender and household composition the insurance function is mainly fulfilled by female migrants to the us only when a male is the sole migrant in his household does he play the role of insurer investment by contrast is pursued by both males and females but only among those migrating to the us d 2002 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

energy intensity developments in 40 major economies structural change or technology improvement this study analyzes energy intensity trends and drivers in 40 major economies using the wiod database a novel harmonized and consistent dataset of input output table time series accompanied by environmental satellite data we use logarithmic mean divisia index decomposition to 1 study trends in global energy intensity between 1995 and 2007 2 attribute efficiency changes to either changes in technology or changes in the structure of the economy and 3 highlight sectoral and regional differences we first show that heterogeneity within each sector across countries is high these general trends within the sectors are dominated by large economies first and foremost the united states in most cases heterogeneity is lower within each country across the different sectors regarding changes of energy intensity at the country level improvements between 1995 and 2007 are largely attributable to technological change while structural change is less important in most countries notable exceptions are japan the united states australia taiwan mexico and brazil where a change in the industry mix was the main driver behind the observed energy intensity reduction

estimating engel curves under unit and item nonresponse summary this paper estimates food engel curves using data from the first wave of the survey on health aging and retirement in europe share our statistical model simultaneously takes into account selectivity due to unit and item nonresponse endogeneity problems and issues related to flexible specification of the relationship of interest we estimate both parametric and semiparametric specifications of the model the parametric specification assumes that the unobservables in the model follow a multivariate gaussian distribution while the semiparametric specification avoids distributional assumptions about the unobservables copyright 2011 john wiley sons ltd

the optimal migration duration and activity choice after re migration if migrants return to their origin countries two questions arise which are of immediate economic interest for both immigration and emigration country what determines their optimal migration duration and what are the activities migrants choose after a return little research has been devoted to these two issues this paper utilises a unique survey data set which records activities of returned migrants we first illustrate the activities of immigrants after returning we show that more than half of the returning migrants are economically active after return and most of them engage in entrepreneurial activities we then develop a model where migrants decide simultaneously about the optimal migration duration and their after return activities guided by this model we specify and estimate an empirical model where the after return activity and the optimal migration duration are simultaneously chosen

the political economy of administered protection trade restrictions are hardly ever voted directly by congress though the threat of direct congressional action is frequently present pressure for protection is usually applied through the major instruments for the administrative regulation of imports the antidumping and countervailing duty procedures and the escape clause mechanism in this paper we will examine these instruments for the administrative regulation of imports the form of the paper is not novel a theory of how these mechanisms work is developed then operational implications of this theory are deduced and tested over the record of countervailing duty antidumping and escape clause cases decided from 1975 through 1979 this is the period over which the trade act of 1974 was in force because the nature of these mechanisms is relatively unfamiliar a relatively large amount of institutional information is provided

asymmetric impacts of the determinants of energy intensity in nigeria abstract this study analysed the problem of energy intensity determinants in nigeria based on the fully modified ols and canonical cointegration regressions these methods were preferred since they are able to deal effectively with the second order bias problems an often characteristics of time series data the impacts of price of crude oil fdi trade openness and industry structure are asymmetric which suggests the presence of structural effects in parameters the impact of crude oil price is negative but becomes stronger post 1989 saving 126 more in energy consumption relative to pre 1989 also the impacts of fdi and trade openness are negative and significant but become stronger post 1989 saving 11 2 and 0 8 more in energy consumption relative to the baseline respectively for every one percentage point increase in fdi and trade openness the impact of industry value added is positive and significant but weakens after 1989 consuming 1 8 less in energy for every one percentage point increase in industry value added relative to the baseline the energy reducing effect of industry value added post 1989 reflects improvements in the technical characteristics of industrial sector in nigeria last the result showed that the absorptive capability and industry characteristics of nigeria are important determinants of how fdi affects energy intensity this implies that a more integrated fdi programme considering the country characteristics rather than a one fit all programme is preferable

why do migrants remit this paper examines primary incentives of remitting using estimated bilateral data on remittances this paper demonstrates that a rise in the home remittance receiving country s gross national income gni per capita leads to fewer remittances and that a rise in the host remittance sending country s gni per capita motivates migrants to remit more real exchange rates and real interest rates have no effect on remittances these results indicate that altruism is an important and critical component of motivations behind remittances however altruism alone does not appear to be a sufficient explanation of the motivations behind remittances other incentives such as loan repayment and investment play a non negligible role in this regard as well the degree of altruism is higher for migrants from developing countries in comparison with migrants from developed countries and it is higher when we define remittances as personal transfers rather than personal transfers and compensation of employees the results of the vector error correction model show if remittances deviate from the equilibrium relationship they will eventually revert

geographical labour mobility migration or commuting eliasson k lindgren u and westerlund o 2003 geographical labour mobility migration or commuting reg studies 37 827 837 in this paper we examine how individual labour market status and spatial variations in employment opportunities influence interregional job search behaviour and mobility decisions in sweden the econometric analysis is based on 290 000 individual observations and refers to the years 1994 95 the empirical results show that the probability of interregional labour mobility unexpectedly decreases with the accessibility to employment opportunities in neighbouring regions as expected the findings reveal that accessibility to job openings in surrounding regions significantly increases the likelihood of choosing commuting as the mobility mode moreover the empirical findings indicate that individual unemployment experience increases the likelihood of mobility as well as migration eliasson k lindgren u et westerlund o 2003 la mobilite geographique du travail la migration

can parental migration reduce petty corruption in education the income generated from parental migration can increase funds available for children s education in countries where informal payments to teachers are common migration could therefore increase petty corruption in education this hypothesis is tested by investigating the effect of migration on educational inputs an instrumental variables approach is used on survey data and matched administrative records from the world bank s open budget initiative boost from moldova one of the countries with the highest emigration rates contrary to the positive income effect the strongest migration related response in private education expenditure that is found is a substantial decrease in informal payments to public school teachers any positive income effect due to migration must hence be overcompensated by some payment reducing effects a number of potential explanations at the family level school level or community level are discussed several of these explanations ruled out and possible interpretations for future research highlighted

the energy intensity in lithuania during 1995 2009 a lmdi approach abstract the measurement assessment and effective mitigation of energy intensity compose a foremost objective of contemporary energy policy although the european union eu member states have been experiencing the convergence in energy efficiency indicators lithuania acceded to the eu in 2004 still remains peculiar with relatively high energy intensity our study therefore is aimed at analyzing the energy intensity trends in lithuanian economy as a whole as well as in separate economic sectors the investigation covers the period of 1995 2009 the logarithmic mean divisia index was applied for decomposition analysis our analysis has shown that energy efficiency falls during economic downturn in order to facilitate these challenges the lithuanian government as well as business should opt for increasing energy efficiency in the most problematic sectors of transport and services in addition the analysis of legal acts namely national energy efficiency programme for 2006 2010 and energy efficiency action plan for 2010 2016 was taken into consideration some suggestions thus were offered for successful implementation of strategic goals outlined in the aforementioned strategic documents

the influence of south korean energy policy on opec oil exports abstract south korea is the fifth top oil importer worldwide with 64 of its oil coming from opec member countries over the last 30 years south korea accounted for a rapid increase in energy use this in turn led south korea to be totally dependent on oil imports due to this increase south korea has been experiencing drastic changes in its energy system which could potentially impact its dependence on opec oil import external and internal factors have forced south korea to change its energy strategy and targets these targets would be achieved by reducing its energy intensity and utilizing electricity and renewable energies in order to reduce its dependence on oil consumption low carbon green growth is one policy along with many other energy policies developed by south korea for reducing greenhouse gases thus this policy is receiving a remarkable attention today these national policies along with other international ones are needed to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and promote other green initiatives this study puts emphasis on these policies as well as uses them to predict the future energy profile of south korea and how these policies will impact on oil imports from opec member countries

sustainability of catch up growth in the extended european union abstract this paper analyses the compatibility of growth and sustainability in the european union eu including a new eu member states from the former soviet bloc eu 10 the extension of eu borders financial and technological support stimulated rapid convergence and decreased the socio economic differences between the old eu 15 and newly accepted eu member states the transition from a command to a market economy resulted in the remarkable increase in resource efficiency and other positive aspects of sustainability along with 1 5 times increased gdp final energy consumption decreased by 20 greenhouse gases emissions by 25 and the emissions of acidifying compounds were halved during the period from the collapse of former soviet bloc to the recent economic crisis however the per capita production and consumption in eu 10 is still approximately half that of eu 15 and further catch up growth should be expected ensuring that economic and social cohesion is not achieved at the expense of increased environmental impact decelerated economic growth is a feature characteristic of mature economies and the gdp growth rate in eu 15 states decreased almost 2 5 times during the last 50 year similar trends are characteristic of other developed countries and market economies have adapted to this trend even with a decelerated growth rate the ecological footprint in developed countries currently exceeds three and more times the allowable limits and almost two thirds of the ecological footprint relates to traditional energy de fossilisation by a greater increase in energy efficiency use of renewable energy and more intense material recovery is the most promising option for reducing the ecological footprint of these countries deceleration of the economic growth rate supplemented by the aforementioned options is a hard but realistic track leading to the reduction of ecological footprint in developed countries to allowable limits without radical de growth in consumption and production that can result in unpredictable and unacceptable consequences

migration remittances and male and female employment patterns little is known about the labor market impacts of workers remittances despite their magnitude in countries with considerable outmigration reports that families receiving international remittances severely curtail their work efforts are fairly common in the popular press e g robert frank 2001 yet we lack rigorous analyses of how male and female labor supplies respond to increases in remittance income to either support or refute these anecdotal observations according to the neoclassical model of labor leisure choice mark r killingsworth 1983 remittances a source of nonlabor income may lift budget constraints raise reservation wages and through an income effect reduce the employment likelihood and hours worked by remittance receiving individuals the receipt of remittances is usually preceded by the out migration of working aged household members however which may induce changes in the labor supply of nonmigrating household members in order to compensate for forgone income or to defray migration related expenses distinguishing the disruptive effect from the income effect of remittance inflows is problematic as most surveys do not contain detailed information on household outmigration and remittance receipt to the extent that these two effects are expected to have opposite impacts on labor supply however we can assess which effect dominates the impact of remittances on the decision to work has been previously examined by edgard rodriguez and erwin r tiongson 2001 in manila and by edward funkhouser 1992 in managua without accounting for the endogeneity of remittances with respect to labor supply they conclude that remittances reduce employment funkhouser also finds that remittances slightly increase self employment while informative these studies focus on the decision to work and do not consider that without altering employment rates remittances may change the hours worked and or the type of work performed in the receiving economy furthermore the impact may be different on male and female labor supplies and responsiveness to remittance income may vary from rural to urban areas using data from mexico a country with a large and growing remittance inflow we address the following questions how does the employment status and hours worked by men and women vary owing to international remittances do male and female labor supplies differ across various types of employment in rural versus urban areas due to higher remittance inflows

a marginal measure of energy efficiency the shadow value abstract economists are well aware of the importance of marginal versus average measures of energy efficiency yet in the energy literature there is no consensus on the appropriate method for defining and measuring energy efficiency this paper sets out the shadow value of energy as a proper and meaningful marginal energy efficiency index a restricted profit function is used to model the shadow value we explore four scenarios to characterize and evaluate the shadow value of energy a within country comparison of different production processes with different energy requirements a comparison of different countries with different resource endowment a government policy to impose a tax to alter the shadow value to address environmental issues and a within country comparison of externalities arising from two sources of energy a comparative static analysis is carried out to sign the functional arguments defined for the shadow value

remittances in small island developing states abstract we examine how remittances relate to the exchange rate natural disasters and foreign aid focusing on small island developing states sids using panel var methods we are able to compensate for both data limitations and endogeneity issues while remittances respond to innovations in the macroeconomic variables included in the analysis remittances also have important impacts on these variables furthermore the impact of remittances differs in sids economies relative to the set of all developing economies remittances appear to depreciate the real exchange in sids economies whereas they appreciate the real exchange rate when a broader sample of economies is considered

remittances and labor force participation in mexico an analysis using propensity score matching summary about 2 5 million mexicans migrated to the united states during 1997 2002 and 1 6 million of them sent remittances to their families did recipients change their labor force status in response to these remittances this question has been examined before unlike the previous studies we separate persistent from sporadic remittances and we use propensity score matching to measure differences in behavior we find limited evidence of labor force participation effects of persistent remittances which is broadly consistent with remittances being an integral part of household s income generation strategy

structural change and convergence of energy intensity across oecd countries 1970 2005 abstract this paper uses new and unique data derived from a consistent framework of national accounts to compute and evaluate energy intensity developments across 18 oecd countries and 50 sectors over the period 1970 2005 we find that across countries energy intensity levels tend to decrease in most manufacturing sectors in the service sector energy intensity decreases at a relatively slow rate with diverse trends across sub sectors a decomposition analysis reveals that changes in the sectoral composition of the economy explain a considerable and increasing part of aggregate energy intensity dynamics a convergence analysis reveals that only after 1995 cross country variation in aggregate energy intensity levels clearly tends to decrease driven by a strong and robust trend break in manufacturing and enhanced convergence in services moreover we find evidence for the hypothesis that across sectors lagging countries are catching up with leading countries with rates of convergence that are on average higher in services than in manufacturing aggregate convergence patterns are almost exclusively caused by convergence of within sector energy intensity levels and not by convergence of the sectoral composition of economies

intertemporal analysis of employment decisions on agricultural holdings in slovenia the article attempts to quantify determinants influencing the dynamics of employment decisions on agricultural holdings in slovenia and to test specific aspects of labor reallocation during the transition period by the application of an agricultural household model through the use of a 1991 2000 longitudinal data set for 22 055 farm households quantitative analysis of intertemporal employment decisions by farm holders is carried out using probit techniques the determinants tested relate to the personal characteristics of farm holders gender age education level and potential off farm income household characteristics size structure characteristics of the agricultural holding economic size labor intensity and local labor market conditions the model results generally confirm existing empirical evidence on asymmetrical and irreversible participation of holders on the labor market despite intensive restructuring of agriculture and profound changes in the nonfarm labor market in the analyzed period labor supply of farm holders remains rigid the mobility of labor supply is lower than expected which can be attributed to the importance of structural problems constraining intersectoral mobility low labor mobility reduces the efficiency of labor allocation on agricultural holdings in slovenia elements of this problem emerge on both supply e g low level of educational and professional attainment of reference persons and demand sides of the labor market e g unfavorable local labor market conditions a marked tendency toward maintaining the same employment status is more distinct in the case of holders employed on farm only

methodological proposal for territorial distribution of the percentage reduction in gross inland energy consumption according to the eu energy policy strategic goal abstract a 20 reduction in the consumption of energy is one of the main goals of the european union s eu 20 20 20 energy strategy but the uniform application of this overall goal to all of the countries is neither fair nor equitable as it does not take into consideration the characteristics of the energy system in each member state this article therefore proposes a nonlinear distribution methodology with objective dynamic goals for reducing gross inland energy consumption according to the context and characteristics of each member state we hope it will open discussion on how these overall goals can be weighted then we analyse the situation of the energy indicators related to energy efficiency in the reference year 2005 used by the eu for reaching its goal of reducing the gross inland consumption by 20 by 2020 and its progress from 1996 to 2007 finally the methodology proposed is applied to the year 2020 on the nuts0 territorial level that is to members of the eu according to the eurostat nomenclature of territorial units for statistics nuts weighting is done based on energy intensity per capita gross inland consumption and per capita energy intensity in two scenarios the eu 15 and eu 27

intra household labour allocation migration and remittances in rural el salvador abstractmigration can affect labour participation decisions back home either by stimulating work to replace foregone labour or reducing it through the role of remittances using evidence from a r

an empirical analysis of energy intensity and the role of policy instruments abstract the reduction of energy intensity is important for sustainable economic growth especially in non oecd countries where energy demand growth is high understanding the impact of policies on energy intensity can help policy makers to reduce energy intensity using empirical methods and cross country data from 44 countries over the period 1990 2016 we study the determinants of energy intensity the common correlated effects mean group estimator is employed since it addresses nonstationarity cross sectional dependence and heterogeneity all three of which exist in the data both gdp per capita and economy wide energy prices are shown to be negatively associated with energy intensity the empirical results provide evidence that several policy instruments are effective in reducing energy intensity i standards and labeling ii government direct investment iii strategic planning and support iv fiscal measures taxes and v grants and subsidies the duration of the policy is more important than the mere existence of the policy in demonstrating the policy s effectiveness

the effect of remittances on labour supply in the republic of haiti we examine the labour supply effect of remittances in the republic of haiti the prime international remittances recipient country in the latin american and caribbean lac region relative to its gdp unlike previous empirical literature we address three econometric issues that may bias the estimates we account for endogeneity of the remittances with respect to labour supply for the zero inflated nature of our dependent variable hours of work and for the self selection of the migrant sample our results are in line with previous literature and point to a decline of labour supply in the presence of remittances however contrary to previous findings the labour market response to remittances of female household heads is not as sensitive as male s

remittances and economic growth larger impacts in smaller countries this paper examines the impact of remittances on economic growth in small island developing states sids results from variants of an empirical model suggest that while on average there is at best no association between remittances and growth in developing countries there is a positive association between these variables in sids this finding holds for sids in sub saharan africa and the pacific but not for those in latin america and the caribbean relationships between remittances economic volatility and household labour supply are offered as reasons for these findings

economic growth and electricity consumption in former soviet republics abstract this study estimates the causal relationship between electricity consumption and economic growth with annual data for the commonwealth independent states countries in three groups of income levels empirical results reveal that electricity consumption and gdp are cointegrated for all these countries furthermore there is a unidirectional causality from electricity consumption to gdp for all groups in the long run effect of electricity consumption on the gdp is negative for the second group of countries which supports the energy conservation policies whereas it is positive for the first and third group of countries which supports the growth hypothesis

a theory of competition among pressure groups for political influence this paper presents a theory of competition among pressure groups for political influence political equilibrium depends on the efficiency of each group in producing pressure the effect of additional pressure on their influence the number of persons in different groups and the deadweight cost of taxes and subsidies an increase in deadweight costs discourages pressure by subsidized groups and encourages pressure by taxpayers this analysis unifies the view that governments correct market failures with the view that they favor the politically powerful both are produced by the competition for political favors

comparative effects of migrants remittances on composition of recipient household income in two small island economies we use unique household survey data from fiji and tonga to estimate and compare the combined impact of migration and remittances on the composition of household income a two step methodology is followed employing a migration prediction model followed by the estimation of a three stage least squares 3sls remittances and income equation system we find that remittances contribute to growth in productive capital and entrepreneurial activity in the longer established migrant economy but have yet to impact on business activity in the more recently remittances oriented economy despite it having a more developed market economy in the latter case remittances seem more linked to supporting consumption through supplementing low wage income these findings suggest that the duration and intensity of remittance driven migration and the structure of economic activity within a community are important in understanding the influences of migration and remittances on household resource allocation and production dec

regional analysis across colombian departments a non parametric study of energy use abstract the analysis of energy use is important in emerging economies and especially in the manufacturing industries as energy is a key factor of sustainable development this research analyses and evaluates the features of regional energy use and efficiency across colombian departments in the manufacturing industries for the period between 2005 and 2013 by applying two malmquist data envelopment analysis models the results indicate significant difference in energy use and efficiency across colombian departments in the manufacturing industries the results of the malmquist indexes determine that various manufacturing industries across colombian departments have a high potential to increase energy efficiency several manufacturing industries across colombian departments have experienced gains in productivity a growth in efficiency an improvement in the relationship between inputs and outputs and scale production and advances in innovation through new technologies this technique allows to make comparisons and improves energy policies to increase energy efficiency and decrease co 2 emissions the application of panel data models indicate that increases in energy prices exports and productivity lead to better energy use while a higher presence of energy intensive sectors and small and medium enterprises across colombian departments reduce energy efficiency the methods selected in this research generated consistent robust and reliable estimates related to energy use and co 2 emissions for regional studies the findings of this study indicate that diverse energy policies should implement in the industrial sector across colombian departments and that they should contribute to improvements in energy use especially in small and medium companies and energy intensive sectors

loss severities on residential real estate debt during the great recession abstract this study develops estimates of expected loss severities on mortgage exposures using data from florida during the great recession this paper marks the first attempt at addressing sample selectivity in the context of loss models we also construct measures of home equity that are more accurate than those employed in previous studies we find that failing to address sample selection and the use of noisy equity measures in loss models can bias loss estimates significantly we also find significantly higher loss severities and a greater sensitivity of loss severity to equity than what previous studies report

suspension of payments bank failures and the nonbank public s losses abstract we present evidence on the effects of suspensions of payments from an episode that is close to a controlled experiment for examining those effects in 1861 about 44 of the banks in wisconsin closed 81 of the banks in illinois closed and noteholders suffered substantial losses the historical record suggests that an effective suspension of payments in wisconsin but not in illinois may explain the difference our statistical evidence indicates that the suspension of payments increased the probability of a bank remaining open by about 21 percentage points and decreased noteholders losses by about 14 cents per dollar

effects of changing trade structure and technical characteristics of the manufacturing sector on energy intensity in ghana abstract this study examined the effects of changing trade structure and changing technical characteristics of the manufacturing sector alongside the effects of foreign direct investment and urbanization on energy intensity in ghana in order to produce a result that is not biased towards non rejection the zivot andrews unit root test with structural break was used the study applied the phillip hansen park and stock watson cointegration models which are more robust to serial correlation and exogeneity problems preliminary findings showed evidence of cointegration the study concludes that the changing technical characteristics of the manufacturing sector after the reform and changing production mix in favor of less energy intensive improved energy efficiency however energy consumption via exports which outweighed the energy saving via imports of capital goods after the reform in 1983 worsened energy efficiency growing urbanization significantly increases energy intensity in all technological diffusion via trade exerts significant influence on energy intensity than technological diffusion via foreign direct investment these results are robust to the cholesky variance decomposition analysis

what cause the decline of energy intensity in china s cities a comprehensive panel data analysis abstract china s progress in energy efficiency has contributed significantly to the reduction in global energy intensity ei but the descending speed of per unit gdp energy consumption in china has been decreasing during recent years the present study aims to investigate the core driving forces of ei from 2005 to 2016 in 289 chinese cities based on granger casualty test and regression analysis for this purpose the study employs panel data analysis with both fixed coefficient and time varying coefficient which are suitable for examining the effects of influence factors on ei and their change trend the granger casualty test investigates that there supposed to be a bidirectional causality between air pollutant emission and energy consumption in china however due to china s weak environmental regulations the negative effect of emission on ei is not significant further regression analysis shows that a percentage increase in electricity price decreases ei by 0 722 in long term but this adjustment takes time furthermore analysis of short term relationship reveals that optimizing energy structure may be the best way for china to reduce ei in short run finally the time varying coefficients of panel data model indicate that inhibitory effect of promoting electricity consumption on ei will keep improving with expansion of electricity use

remittance receipt and business ownership in the dominican republic using household level data from the dominican communities in the latin american migration project lamp dr7 we examine the links between remittance receipt and business ownership we find that while the existence of a family business attracts remittance inflows these monetary funds are associated with a reduced likelihood of business entrepreneurship these results are consistent with various hypotheses regarding remittances and business investments first remittances may be motivated by the availability of investment opportunities in the home community second remittances may respond to a bequest motive on the part of the emigrant who may wish to lay claim on family assets when returning home lastly remittances may cause an income effect that reduces family labour force participation and correspondingly the likelihood of family run business investments

remittance income volatility and labor supply in mexico author affiliation catalina amuedo dorantes camuedod mail sdsu edu corresponding authorsusan pozo susan pozo wmich edu acknowledgment we would like to thank the anonymous referees and the editor for their comments and suggestions on how to improve the manuscript 1 background and significancea significant body of academic and policy research analyzes the impact of international remittances the earnings that emigrants send home in economies around the globe studies have been carried out to ascertain the effect of remittances on a wide range of economic outcomes including household decisions concerning capital accumulation health and housing expenditures country exchange rates economic growth income distribution poverty rates and as we do in this study labor supply evidence of the impacts of remittances on the well being of recipients and on economic progress is mixed some studies find that countries and households reap positive benefits from these resource transfers e g adam and page 2005 while others find negative or ambiguous effects e g narayan narayan and mishra 2011 an overall consensus on the impacts of remittances is unlikely to emerge for some time given the complexity of this research topic not to mention the varying characteristics of countries under analysis 1we propose to contribute to this important debate using an expanded approach for assessing the effects of remittances on individual and household decision making our contribution is to note that while the level of resource transfers received by the household is likely to influence individual and household behaviors volatility with regard to the stream of inflows is also likely to play an important role to date research on the impact of remittances on remittance receiving households has tended to focus on the way in which the level of remittance inflows affects either individual or household behavior without considering the volatility surrounding these inflows however if the volatility that surrounds remittance inflows influences individual and household behaviors a strategy that only examines the level of inflows is likely to miss out on a more complete understanding of the effects of remittances on individual and household decision making and therefore of their impacts on remittance receiving economies amuedo dorantes and pozo 2010 in this study we focus on the labor market and investigate how volatility of remittance inflows influences male and female labor supply a crucial dimension in the influence of remittances on remittance receiving countries limited numbers of studies have examined the impact of the incidence and level of remittance income on labor supply patterns although conclusions differ owing in part to the various data sources and methodological approaches being used a majority of the studies have concluded that the receipt of remittances results in labor supply reductions for instance rodriguez and tiongson 2001 report that remittances lower employment in the philippines while funkhouser 1992 estimates that remittances reduce the employment likelihood of nicaraguan men and women by 2 and 5 percentage points respectively studies by amuedo dorantes and pozo 2006 and hanson 2007 found that the impact of remittances on the labor supply of mexicans is conditioned on gender they conclude that mexican women reduce labor supply on account of remittance inflows whereas men do not in contrast limiting their study to mexican households that receive persistent remittances cox edwards and rodriguez oreggia 2009 conclude that remittances have no impact on the labor supply of household members remaining in mexico with the exception of urban women in traditionally low migration states for whom labor supply rises however we still lack an understanding of the ways in which the volatility in remittance inflows can impact labor supply in remittance receiving countries

undocumented mexico u s migration and the returns to households in rural mexico this paper presents estimates of net income gains to a sample of households in rural mexico from sending migrants illegally to the united states correcting for sample selectivity bias and it examines the role of expected income gains in driving illegal mexico u s migration there is no evidence that people who migrate illegally to the united states are above average contributors to household income either as workers in mexico or as mexico u s migrants however other things being equal villagers who are in the best position to contribute to household income as workers in mexico are positively selected not to migrate to the united states

the impacts of energy prices on energy intensity evidence from china in this paper we present a review of the deregulation of energy prices in china between 1985 and 2004 and assess the impacts of changes in energy prices on aggregate energy intensity and coal oil electricity intensity we used time series data to provide estimates of energy price elasticities empirical results showed that 1 the own price elasticities of coal oil and aggregate energy were negative in periods both before and after 1995 implying that higher relative prices of different energy types lead to the decrease in coal oil and aggregate energy intensities however the positive own price elasticity of electricity after 1995 probably indicates that the price effect was weaker than other factors such as income effect and population effect 2 the impacts of energy prices were asymmetric over time 3 sectoral adjustment also drove the decrease in aggregate energy intensity although raising energy prices to boost efficiency of energy use seems to be an effective policy tool other policy implications concerned with energy prices such as energy supply security and fuel poverty must also be considered

remittances output and exchange rate regimes theory with an application to latin america immigrant remittances have a broad effect on the receiving economies we show this impact on the main macroeconomic aggregates is dependent on the policy arrangements in place that manage capital flows we look at remittance inflows in a small open economy to examine their influence on output under alternative exchange rate regimes using a simple stochastic limited participation model we are able to reproduce dynamics consistent with the empirical literature we find that the dynamics of labor inflation and output are dependent on the parameterization of the utility function and on the monetary rule governing the evolution of the interest rate and in particular with respect to the response of interest rates to exchange rate movements we find that the initial drop of output resulting from a remittances shock is similar under alternative exchange rate regimes but the subsequent recovery of output is faster and stronger under more flexible exchange rate regimes we provide suggestive empirical evidence from a panel vector autoregression specification for 17 latin american countries that corroborates our results