risk sharing and internal migration over the past two decades more than half the population in rural tanzania migrated within the country profoundly changing the nature of traditional institutions such as informal risk sharing mass internal migration has created geographically disperse networks on which the authors collected detailed panel data by quantifying how shocks and consumption co vary across linked households they show how migrants unilaterally insure their extended family members at home this finding contradicts risk sharing models based on reciprocity but is consistent with assistance driven by social norms migrants sacrifice 3 to 7 percent of their very substantial consumption growth to provide this insurance which seems too trivial to have any stifling effect on their growth through migration

return migration uncertainty and precautionary savings this paper presents a life cycle model where migrants determine re migration and consumption simultaneously in a stochastic environment whether precautionary savings of migrants are above or below those of natives is ambiguous in general the sign depends on the risk in host and home country labor markets and on the correlation of labor market shocks furthermore the effect of an uncertain environment on migration and re migration plans cannot be unambiguously signed for the general case it depends on the size of the wage differential as well as the relative risk the migrant exhibits in the two labor markets

an inventory model for deteriorating items with shortages and time varying demand abstract a deterministic inventory system for items with a constant deterioration rate is studied demand varies in time and it is assumed that it follows a power pattern shortages are allowed and backlogged the ordering cost the holding cost the backlogging cost the deteriorating cost and the purchasing cost are considered in the inventory management an approach is proposed to minimize the total cost per inventory cycle this cost depends on two decision variables the time at which the inventory level falls to zero and the length of the scheduling period numerical examples illustrate the theoretical results

remittances and income diversification in bolivia s rural sector this article examines the role of remittances in income diversification strategies in bolivia s rural sector remittances can be consumed or invested by the recipient as an investment funds can be used for farming or to finance other nonfarm productions in this article we use a large and nationally representative survey to estimate the effect that remittances have on the probability of producing income from nonfarm activities diversification by using a bivariate probit model our evidence shows that remittances increase the probability that a rural family engages in nonfarm activities at least in some regions of bolivia we also find evidence that the sender s decision to remit and the recipient s decision to diversify may be jointly determined as such this suggests that remittances may serve as a mechanism to overcome localized failures in bolivia s capital markets

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

family and community networks in mexico u s migration a household s decision to send migrants is based on infornation it has on the entry costs expected returns and risks of migration information and assistance flow from both family migrant networks and community migrant networks using data from a national survey of rural mexican households we show the importance of networks in both the decision to migrate and the level of migration we find that community and family networks are substitutes in assisting migration suggesting that once migration is well established in a community family networks become less important in addition the development of strong community networks erases the role of household characteristics in migration allowing those initially least favored to also participate in migration finally we show that network density at points of destination in the united states strongly affects where individuals choose to migrate

remittance and financial inclusion in refugee migrants inverse probability of treatment weighting using the propensity score abstractthis paper investigates the impact on remittances on financial inclusion of refugee migrants while financial inclusion is gaining traction in the humanitarian and development literature t

migration remittances and poverty in ecuador abstractwe analyse the influence of the recent wave of migration on the incidence of poverty among stayers in ecuador we draw our data from a survey that provides detailed information on migrants the analysis reveals a significant negative effect of migration on poverty among migrant households this effect is substantially smaller than the one that we find focusing on recipient households we explore the factors that account for this divergence our analysis entails that the existing empirical evidence on the relationship between remittances and poverty does not need to be informative about the size of the direct poverty reduction potential of migration

the economics of forced migration abstract this article reviews the economics literature on the impacts of forced migration the literature is divided into two parts impacts on forced migrants and impacts on host communities studies exploring the impact of forced migration due to wwii suggest that the long term impact is often positive the literature for developing countries suggests that there are serious consequences of forced migration for those forced to migrate these consequences range from worse labour market outcomes to less consumption smoothing the impact on host communities seems to be mixed and there are winners and losers the article provides suggestions for future research

labor market performance as a determinant of migration in a comparison of migrants with nonmigrants both observed and unobservable productivity factors are relevant this paper focuses more on the unobservable factors and their correlation between places of origin and destination a human capital model of migration demonstrates that more productive workers at the origin would choose to migrate only if the correlation between origin and destination factors is strongly positive longitudinal data drawn from the cote d ivoire living standards survey 1985 86 are used to examine the pattern of migration in the light of labor market performance both of wage employees and non farm self employed workers it is found that indeed the more productive workers migrate furthermore the general direction of migration is toward cities the conclusion is therefore that rural areas lose their productive workers and that urban areas may gain in productivity from the geographical shifts in population

cash flows accruals and future returns this study explored the accrual anomaly the study is unique because it analyzed originally reported unrestated quarterly data for 1991 through the first quarter of 2004 to calculate accruals and used u s sec filing dates to identify the day on which investors first obtained information about accruals the study found that the accrual anomaly exists for quarterly accruals as has been found for annual accruals future quarterly earnings were found to be more highly associated with current net operating cash flows than with accruals because accruals have less persistence than cash flows companies with extremely high low current quarterly accruals have significant and negative positive abnormal returns through the subsequent four quarters

remittances and household wealth after conflict a case study on urban burundi few studies have researched the use of remittances in conflict affected contexts this study analyzes unique data from burundi testing three hypotheses relative deprivation investment and insurance derived from new economics of labor migration studies employing propensity score matching results show that remittances are common among wealthier households rejecting the relative deprivation hypothesis remittances have strong effects on non productive assets such as living conditions and food security and weak effects on productive assets such as asset ownership poorer households invest mostly in non productive assets suggesting that remittances are insurance for the poor whereas wealthier households seem largely unaffected by remittances

agricultural production amid conflict separating the effects of conflict into shocks and uncertainty abstract this paper examines the effect of conflict on agricultural production of small farmers first an inter temporal model of agricultural production is developed in which the impact of conflict is transmitted through violent shocks and uncertainty brought about by conflict we test the model using a unique household survey applied to 4800 households in four micro regions of colombia our findings suggest households learn to live amid conflict albeit at a lower income trajectory when presence of non state armed actors prolongs farmers shift to activities with short term yields and lower profitability from activities that require high investments if violence intensifies in regions with presence of non state armed actors farmers concentrate on subsistence activities

rural urban migration household vulnerability and welfare in vietnam summary this paper investigates the interaction of migration vulnerability to poverty and welfare of rural households in three provinces in central vietnam it addresses three questions 1 to what extent do shocks motivate rural household members to move to urban areas 2 are migrants in the new urban settings better off in terms of working conditions and quality of life and 3 what is the effect of migration on rural household s welfare and vulnerability to poverty the analysis uses panel data of 2200 households from rural vietnam covering the period 2007 2010 and a tracking survey of 299 migrants from 2010 the empirical evidence from a probit model shows that migration especially migration for employment is a livelihood support strategy for households exposed to agricultural and economic shocks migration for education is more likely observed among households with higher human capital and being financially better off nevertheless the probability of migration decreases with the employment opportunity in the village migrants perceive themselves to be better off at the place of destination but income losses from shocks of their rural households may reduce their employment quality the results from difference in difference specifications with propensity score matching techniques suggest that migration has positive income growth effects and that these effects are more pronounced in provinces with fewer job opportunities these effects help not only migrant households moving out of poverty but it also improves the poverty situation in rural areas

labor market participation of chinese agricultural households empirical evidence from zhejiang province abstract this work is devoted to the analysis of the different labor market participation regimes of chinese farm households over the reform process in the 1980s and 1990s using household data over the period 1986 2002 from the province zhejiang we apply a multinomial logit model to empirically examine household farm and regional characteristics affecting the probability that farmers participate in one of four alternative labor market regimes as generally accepted off farm participation is the dominant form of farm households labor market participation but rural households show additionally a significant impact on rural employment mainly linked with non agricultural household business results suggest that labor market decisions are significantly related to several family farm and village characteristics in particular we find education to be a key determinant of participation furthermore results point to a higher probability of female household members to take up off farm work

international migration and income distribution in the philippines the author uses data on remittances from migrants to determine the effects of migration on household income and its distribution in the philippines i briefly describe the evolution of household income distribution using fies the family income and expenditure survey and the characteristics of households that receive income from migrants and those that do not i discuss the analytical framework that is used and outline the changes in incomes and inequality that emigration causes excerpt

remittances and inequality in this paper the authors propose a framework and develop techniques for analyzing the impact of migrant remittances on the distribution of rural income by size and subsequently its impact on rural welfare household data are used to assign numerical coefficients to the impact of net remittances from both internal and international migrants on income inequality in 2 mexican villages the impact of migrant remittances on the distribution of rural income by size depends critically on the degree to which migration opportunities become diffused through the village population on the returns to human capital embodied in remittances and on the distribution of potentially remittance enhancing skills and education across village households our empirical findings demonstrate that in a village where many households contain internal migrants but few have experience migrating to the u s remittances from mexico to us migrants have an unequalizing impact on village incomes while remittances from internal migrants have a favorable effect on the village income distribution by contrast in a village with a long historyh of sending migrants to the us and hence a more ready access to us labor markets us to mexico remittances have an equalizing impact on incomes remittances from internal migrants in this village however embody a large human capital component and are highly correlated with household income hence internal migrant remittances account for a comparatively large share of inequalities in the 2nd village the overall effect of remittances on income inequality is favorable in both villages migration type migration stage and interaction terms all appear to play a role in this context the effects of small changes in remittances upon income inequality and rural welfare in the 2 villages are explored and some implications for migration and rural development policy are considered authors modified

poverty transition in rural vietnam the role of migration and remittances abstractthis study combines insights of the new economics of labour migration with the asset based approach to welfare dynamics using panel household data from vietnam this method allows us to determine whether poverty transitions induced by remittances are actually structural that is based on asset growth and therefore long term or stochastic that is based only on short term increases in income which implies a risk of falling back into poverty to control for endogeneity of remittances we use household fixed effects and instrumental variables estimation the paper shows that remittances have a positive impact on asset growth and that the impact differs with welfare status and ethnicity

national wage trends and migration in a chinese village economy a micro level modeling approach based on a composite utility function china s economy is experiencing a regime shift away from a fully elastic supply of labor from a large pool of rural surplus labor and toward a situation of increasing labor scarcity and rising wage rates moreover faster wage increases in the regions of origin of many rural urban migrants are likely to affect the dynamics of inter regional migration these wage trends have implications at the local level in particular in a setting in which migration connects rural communities to the national labor market and in which migration is of high importance for the livelihoods of rural households taking a village perspective this article develops a village computable general equilibrium model to study local impacts of current wage trends in china as a central piece of the model the role of access to migration for household livelihoods is recognized access to migration is linked to household demographics and included in the model through a composite utility function that captures household preferences and disutilities associated with alternative off farm activities simulation results illustrate how households utility considerations affect migration responses to national wage changes statements about possible impacts on village level labor supply land use and agricultural production are made when migration wages and local off farm wages are simulated to increase an overall increase in household and village migration and a higher supply of labor to local off farm labor markets is accompanied by a contraction of farm production although land is reallocated between households with different migration responses total agricultural output declines

a simple rule for determining replenishment intervals of an inventory item with linear decreasing demand rate abstract considerable amount of research efforts have not so far been devoted to inventory replenishment problems where the rate of demand decreases with time in comparison to increasing pattern of demand rate this article presents a simple rule for determining the replenishment intervals of an inventory item having a linear decreasing demand rate over a finite planning horizon in heuristic approach the proposed method is applied to the well known silver s heuristic continuous time part period heuristic and continuous least unit cost method and its performance is examined with a numerical example

single item optimal lot sizing under continuous unit cost decrease abstract an important characteristic of high tech industries is decreasing component unit cost over time in this paper we develop an inventory model for products experiencing continuous decrease in unit cost unlike earlier models which were restricted to equal cycle times we allow cycle times of varying length we develop a fast algorithm for identifying an optimal or near optimal solution to the model and test the performance of the algorithm we illustrate the models with numerical examples

migration transfers and economic decision making among agricultural households an introduction abstract the increasing volume of remittances and public transfers in rural areas of the developing world has raised hopes that these inflows may serve as an effective mechanism for reducing poverty in the long term by facilitating investments and raising productivity particularly in agriculture where market failures are most manifest the seven papers in this special issue systematically test the relationship between transfers and productive spending amongst rural households in six different countries overall the studies embrace a less optimistic view of the role of migration and public and private transfers on agriculture with migration as facilitating a transition away from agriculture or to models of less labour intensive agriculture

does migration raise agricultural investment an empirical analysis for rural mexico the effect of remittances on capital accumulation remains a contested topic this paper uses a panel data set from rural mexico to investigate the impact of remittances on agriculture and livestock investments after controlling for the endogeneity of migration through an instrumental variable estimation our empirical results show that international migration has a significantly positive effect on the accumulated agricultural assets but not on livestock capital this suggests that households use the capital obtained from international migration only to overcome liquidity constraints for subsistence production whereas migration itself seems to be the superior investment option compared to other productive activities such as livestock husbandry

adjusting the labor supply to mitigate violent shocks evidence from rural colombia this paper studies the use of labor markets to mitigate the impact of violent shocks on households in rural areas in colombia it examines changes in the labor supply from on farm to off farm labor as a means of coping with the violent shock and the ensuing redistribution of time within households it identifies the heterogeneous response by gender because the incidence of violent shocks is not exogenous the analysis uses instrumental variables that capture several dimensions of the cost of exercising terror as a response to the violent shocks households decrease the time spent on on farm work and increase their supply of labor to off farm activities non agricultural ones men carry the bulk of the adjustment in the use of time inasmuch as they supply the most hours to off farm non agricultural work and formal labor markets labor markets do not fully absorb the additional labor supply women in particular are unable to find jobs in formal labor markets and men have increased time dedicated to leisure and household chores additional off farm supply does not fully cover the decrease in consumption the results suggest that in rural colombia labor markets are a limited alternative for coping with violent shocks thus policies in conflict affected countries should go beyond short term relief and aim at preventing labor markets from collapsing and at supporting the recovery of agricultural production

economic effects of migration on the left behind in cambodia abstractusing propensity score matching this study examines the effects of migration on various indicators of household wellbeing in cambodia the results indicate that migration would reduce poverty headcount rate by 3 7 percentage points and decrease the depth of poverty migration is also found to reduce by 5 10 per cent the hours worked by members left behind the impact of migration on labour participation may be however vulnerable to unobservable factors nevertheless the study suggests that important heterogeneous effects which differ from the average impact exist the analysis is conducted separately by internal and international migration

migration and the sending economy a disaggregated rural economy wide analysis abstract most economic research on migration impacts focuses on the households that send the migrants and get the remittances ignoring linkages with others in the sending economies this paper offers an alternative disaggregated economy wide perspective on migration and its impacts data from the 2003 mexico national rural household survey are used to calibrate a series of interacting rural household models nested within a general equilibrium model of the whole rural economy simulations reveal that the impacts of international migration and remittances on sending areas depend critically on the ways in which local markets transmit influences among households

the less extreme the more you leave radical islam and willingness to migrate summary this paper studies radical islam as a determinant of individuals willingness to migrate surprisingly despite its relevance in the political debate this topic has not been investigated empirically in the literature in order to fill this gap we develop a model of the decision to migrate focusing in particular on the role played by cultural traits more specifically we focus on radical islam as a deterrent for migration following berman 2003 we define radical islam as a set of ideologies also referred to as political islam holding that islam should guide not only personal life but also social and political life in our model more radical values imply a higher psychological cost of migrating this cost derives from the fact that connections with socio religious friends and neighbors are generally not maintained after migration thus deterring individuals from migrating mayers 2000 we then test empirically the predictions of the model using individual level data from the second 2010 11 and third 2012 14 waves of the arab barometer our results suggest that ceteris paribus more radical individuals are less willing to migrate this finding is robust to alternative specifications of the model and to the use of instrumental variables and propensity score matching aimed at addressing the potential endogeneity of radical islam the result is also qualitatively unchanged when using aggregate data on actual outflows of migrants

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

quarterly accruals or cash flows in portfolio construction using quarterly and rolling four quarter data this study explores the incremental roles of accruals and net operating cash flows in generating abnormal returns for the full population of u s listed companies and specific industries quarterly net operating cash flow ocf is a stronger signal of the next quarter s returns than are accruals when rolling four quarter ocf and accruals were used to construct portfolios held for a whole year however ocf dominated accruals only in the first three fiscal quarters the industry specific results are consistent with the results for the full population for most industries investment managers and financial analysts should focus on ocf more than on accruals

an anatomy of the s p game the effects of changing the rules this study analyzes the effects of changes in s p 500 index composition from january 1986 through june 1994 a period during which standard and poor s began its practice of preannouncing changes five days beforehand the new announcement practice has given rise to the s p game and has altered the way stock prices react we find that prices increase abnormally from the close on the announcement day to the close on the effective day the overall increase is greater than under the old announcement policy although part of the increase reverses after the stock is included in the index the s p game is based upon the perceived price reaction of a stock to news that it will be added to the s p 500 the game involves buying the shares of the stock ahead of s p 500 funds and then selling after index fund demand is satisfied the opportunity to play the s p game arose in october 1989 when standard and poor s p began its practice of preannouncing changes to the s p 500 before that time s p announced the change in composition after the close of trading with the change becoming effective by the following morning s open with no lead time index funds bought the shares of the newly included stock on the day following the announcement the buying pressure caused prices to rise for additions during the period 1976 through 1983 for example shleifer 1986 found an abnormal price increase of 2 79 percent on the day following the announcement using roughly the same sample period harris and gurel 1986 reported a 3 13 percent average increase

the effect on stock price of inclusion in or exclusion from the s p 500 1987 the effect on stock price of inclusion in or exclusion from the s p 500 financial analysts journal vol 43 no 1 pp 58 65

optimal policy for an inventory system with power demand backlogged shortages and production rate proportional to demand rate abstract this article analyzes an inventory system for items with time varying demand the way by which demand occurs during the inventory cycle follows a power demand pattern the production of items allows to add stock in the inventory during a replenishment period the production rate is proportional to demand rate shortages are allowed and completely backlogged holding cost shortage cost and order cost are the costs considered in the inventory model the aim consists of the minimization of the total cost per inventory cycle an efficient approach is developed to obtain the optimal scheduling period and the optimal reorder point in addition the economic lot size and the minimum cost of the inventory management is determined some numerical examples are presented for illustrating the proposed inventory model

new evidence on stock price effects associated with changes in the s p 500 index since october 1989 standard and poor s has when possible announced changes in the composition of the s p 500 index one week in advance because index funds hold s p 500 stocks to minimize tracking error index composition changes since this date provide an opportunity to examine the market reaction to an anticipated change in the demand for a stock using post october 1989 data the authors document significantly positive negative postannouncement abnormal returns that are only partially reversed following additions deletions these results indicate the existence of temporary price pressing and downward sloping long run demand curves for stocks and represent a violation of market efficiency copyright 1997 by university of chicago press

environmental stressors and migration evidence from vietnam the argument that environmental change is an important driving force of migration has experienced a strong revival in the climate change context while various studies predict large environmental migration flows due to climate change and other environmental events the ex post empirical evidence for this phenomenon is inconclusive we contribute to the extant literature by focusing on the micro level we examine whether and how individual perceptions of different types of environmental stressors induce internal migration the analysis relies on original survey data from vietnam including both migrants and non migrants the results suggest that individual perceptions of long term environmental events such as droughts significantly reduce migration while perceptions of sudden onset environmental events such as floods significantly increase the likelihood of migration controlling for other determinants of migration these findings also imply that improving the targeting of aid to environmental disaster affected areas and the financial and technical support for adaptation to environmental change could be the most productive policy options policymakers thus need to implement a wide range of developmental policies in combination with environmental ones in order to improve society s ability to effectively cope with environmental change and minimize its effect on migration

short term labour migration from the republic of armenia to the russian federation we explore the determinants of short term labour migration from armenia to russia based on a unique panel dataset a dynamic switching regression model with endogenous switching is applied our evidence pinpoints migration experience the expected individual income gap from migration low job opportunities in armenia and the possibility of diversifying income risks as the most important determinants family ties turn out to be insignificant the hypothetical income gap is about 280 per cent several explanations are provided for the fact that some individuals do not migrate in spite of a large income gap

long term price effect of s p 500 addition and earnings quality when a company is added to the s p 500 index it receives a positive price response several explanations for this effect have been suggested but empirical findings do not provide a conclusive cause the inclusion of a company in the index may strengthen managerial incentives to provide high quality disclosures of financial data this study is an examination of the earnings quality of s p 500 companies before and after their addition to the index it finds that discretionary accruals significantly decrease after companies are added to the index which greatly improves earnings quality this change in earnings quality provides a possible explanation for the price response to the s p 500 addition

risk aversion time preferences and out migration experimental evidence from ghana and indonesia abstract it has long been hypothesized that migrants and non migrants differ in their individual risk and time preferences due to a lack of reliable data on migrants preferences empirical evidence however is scarce therefore this paper has sought to advance research on preferences and migration decisions by using original household survey data from two developing countries that are both characterized by a longstanding tradition in regional migration in coastal communities in ghana and indonesia individual risk and time preferences have not only been elicited through survey questions but also through experimental tasks with real and relatively large monetary payoffs there is evidence that out migrants from both study regions are significantly less risk averse and have a lower time preference than non migrants overall the results indicate that the considered individual preferences are as important as employment status education or networks which have mainly been the focus of migration theories

changes in the standard and poor s 500 list l harris and e gurel 1986 and a shleifer 1986 examined changes in the standard and poor s list both studies presented evidence inconsistent with efficient markets looking at newer data and at bond and option prices the authors find that case against market efficiency is not compelling copyright 1991 by university of chicago press

the new economics of labor migration this paper reviews selected theoretical and empirical developments in the field of labor migration economics the migration behavior of individuals differs in accordance with their perceived relative deprivation those who are relatively more deprived tend to have stronger incentive to migrate than those who are relatively less deprived moreover a reference group characterized by more income inequality is likely to generate more relative deprivation highly skilled workers are also more likely to migrate migration decisions are often made jointly by the migrant and nonmigrant with a contractual arrangement regarding the sharing of costs and returns the exchange of commitments to share income provides coinsurance of particular interest are the determinants of the speed of adoption of migration as an innovation and the characteristics associated with the delay in the adoption of innovation new econometric techniques including techniques for the analysis of qualitative dependent variables techniques that correct for sample selection bias and those for the analysis of longitudinal data have substantially benefited empirical research in this area new methods that can correct for the biased estimate of the wages particular individuals would receive at 2 or more locations at the same point in time allow researchers to test locational decsion making models estimates of these structural models of labor migration support the hypothesis that individuals respond to income incentives in making the decsion to migrate further research is needed on the pazzling observation that migrant workers earn less than native born workers with similar characteristics during the 1st few years after migration but more thereafter other topics that need further research include the macroeconomic effects of migration the microeconomic and macroeconomic relationships between aging and labor migration and the migration behavior of dual earner families

on migration and risk in ldcs the authors develop the hypothesis that aversion to risk rather than expectations of higher income is the primary motivation for rural urban migration in developing countries this hypothesis maintains that an optimizing risk averse small farmer family will try to place a family member in the urban sector in order to diversify its income portfolio an additional hypothesis related to risk is also considered at the individual rather than the family level annotation

the impact of international remittances on child outcomes and household expenditures in nepal abstractnepal has one of the highest ratios of international remittances to gross domestic product in the world we examine whether the massive inflow of international remittances affects child schooling child labour and household expenses controlling extensively for a host of observed characteristics of households and migrants and using an instrumental variable approach this research finds no effect of international remittances on child education or child labour in nepal however it does find a significant increase in non food expenditures including education spending due to international remittances despite increased expenditure on child education educational outcomes are not improving because of international remittances

earnings management to avoid earnings decreases and losses this paper provides evidence that firms manage reported earnings to avoid earnings decreases and losses specifically in cross sectional distributions of earnings changes and earnings we lind unusually low frequencies of small decreases in earnings and small losscs and unusually high frequencies of small increases in earnings and small positive income we find evidence that two components of earnings cash flow from operations and changes in working capital are used to achieve increases in earnings we present two theories based on stakeholder use of information processing heuristics and prospect theory about the motivation for avoidance of earnings decreases and losses

a contracting perspective on earnings quality abstract this paper analyzes the impact of signal to noise ratios and the autocorrelation of a performance measure on the principal s welfare in dynamic agencies with renegotiation we consider the impact of changes in the persistent transitory and reversible components of accounting earnings on its usefulness in valuation versus contracting increasing the persistent components and reducing the reversible components are generally desirable for valuation but not for contracting eliminating transitory components of earnings is generally desirable for valuation but not necessarily for contracting we discuss the contracting implications of differences in the autocorrelations of accounting earnings versus stock returns

s p 500 index additions and earnings expectations stock price increases associated with addition to the s p 500 index have been interpreted as evidence that demand curves for stocks slope downward a key premise underlying this interpretation is that index inclusion provides no new information about companies future prospects we examine this premise by analyzing analysts earnings per share eps forecasts around index inclusion and by comparing postinclusion realized earnings to preinclusion forecasts relative to benchmark companies companies newly added to the index experience signi cant increases in eps forecasts and signi cant improvements in realized earnings these results indicate that s p index inclusion is not an information free event studies that examine the prices of common stocks when they become included in the standard poor s s p 500 index have appeared regularly in leading nance journals since 1986 fascination with the eiect of s p index inclusion on stock prices appears to stem from the possibility that inclusion in the index is an information free eventfinformation free in the sense that s p makes no claim that inclusion represents an endorsement of the newly included stock s future prospects 1 indeed s p makes an a rmative claim to the contrary company

migration and economic mobility in tanzania evidence from a tracking survey this study explores the extent to which migration has contributed to improved living standards of individuals in tanzania using longitudinal data on individuals the authors estimate the impact of migration on consumption growth between 1991 and 2004 the analysis addresses concerns about heterogeneity and unobservable factors correlated with both income changes and the decision to migrate the findings show that migration adds 36 percentage points to consumption growth during a period of considerable growth in consumption these results are robust to numerous tests and alternative specifications unpacking the findings the analysis finds that moving out of agriculture is correlated with much higher growth than staying in agriculture although growth is always higher in any sector if one physically moves economic mobility is strongly linked to geographic mobility the puzzle is why more people do not move if returns to geographic mobility are high the evidence is consistent with models in which exit barriers are set by home communities through social and family norms that prevent migration of certain categories of people

displacement due to violence in colombia a household level analysis abstract civil wars and ethnic conflicts have resulted in an estimated number of approximately 35 million refugees and internally displaced persons worldwide understanding the determinants of forced migration is an important prerequisite for the definition of appropriate policies of prevention assistance and relocation we develop a conceptual framework for the empirical analysis of displacement decisions at the household level while similarities to conventional migration theories exist there are also important differences implied by the presence of violent conflict for example risk aversion and lack of information may hamper conventional migration but enhance displacement factors such as landholdings and social capital at the place of origin may not only reduce displacement in the conventional sense of raising opportunity costs but may also spur displacement indirectly by increasing the household s likelihood of becoming the victim of direct threats for the case of colombia we conduct an econom

the dynamics of chinese rural households participation in labor markets the work is devoted to the dynamics of labor market participation of chinese rural households based on a theoretical farm household framework the choice between four distinct labor market participation states is empirically analyzed using household data over the period 1995 2002 from the province zhejiang we apply a discrete time hazard approach to analyze households labor market participation histories in particular we investigate the movements between autarky and participation in general and more specifically the shifts between part time and full time farming estimation results suggest significant duration dependence more precisely a decreasing risk of moving from one state to another with an increasing time a household occupies one of these states further the likelihoods of starting any participation in labor markets and to start part time farming are considerably higher than to end participation or to return to full time farming in addition we find that labor market participation decisions are significantly related to several household and farm characteristics

price and volume effects associated with changes in the s p 500 list new evidence for the existence of price pressures attempts to identify price pressures caused by large transactions may be inconclusive if the transactions convey new information to the market this problem is addressed in an examination of prices and volume surrounding changes in the composition of the s p 500 since these changes cause some investors to adjust their holdings of the affected securities and since it is unlikely that the changes convey information about the future prospects of these securities they provide an excellent opportunity to study price pressures the results are consistent with the price pressure hypothesis immediately after an addition is announced prices increase by more than 3 percent this increase is nearly fully reversed after 2 weeks the efficient market hypothesis emh predicts that security prices reflect all publicly available information therefore one corollary of the emh is that you can sell or buy large blocks of stock at close to the market price as long as you can convince other investors that you have no private information 1 this statement assumes that securities are near perfect substitutes for each other if so the excess demand for a single security will be very elastic and the sale or purchase of a large number of shares will have no impact on price in contrast to the emh scholes 8 kraus and stoll 5 hess and frost 4 and others propose two hypotheses which predict that a large stock sale purchase will cause the price to decrease increase even if no new information is associated with the transaction the imperfect substitutes hypothesis ish also known as the distribution effect hypothesis assumes that securities are not close substitutes for each other and hence that long term demand is less than perfectly elastic under this hypothesis equilibrium prices change when demand curves shift to eliminate excess demand price reversals are not expected because the new price reflects a new equilibrium distribution of security holders the price pressure hypothesis pph assumes that investors who accommodate demand shifts must be compensated for the transaction costs and portfolio risks that they bear when they agree to immediately buy or sell securities which they otherwise would not trade these passive suppliers of liquidity are attracted by immediate price drops rises associated with large sales purchases they are compensated for their liquidity service when prices rise drop to their fullinformation levels the pph like the emh assumes that long run demand is

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

cumulative causation and selectivity in labour market oriented migration caused by imperfect information maier g 1985 cumulative causation and selectivity in labour market oriented migration caused by imperfect information reg studies 19 231 241 the paper discusses the implications of job search models for migration the information assumption of the standard search model turns out to be too restrictive to permit insights into the migration decision process many hypotheses derived from these assumptions contradict empirical observations dropping the assumption of perfect information about the wage offer distribution leads to a more complex search model in this model information about the wage offer distribution is imperfect and accumulated through the search process when based on this search model the migration model is largely enriched and also more realistic strategies which are suboptimal or even absurd with perfect information about the wage offer distribution such as purchase of information can be preferable in a migration model when imperfect information is assumed although the model p

the russell reconstitution effect significant returns were associated with the annual reconstitution of the russell equity indexes from 1996 through 2002 which can be explained by both transitory price pressure and the permanent effects of index membership on the one hand the return effects represent a significant cost to index funds that rebalance on the reconstitution date on the other hand supplying immediacy at this time can be highly profitable this strategy is typically undiversified however and involves high trading costs and price risk as positions are unwound indeed dramatic intraday return volatility characterizes the day of reconstitution these factors explain the persistence of the reconstitution effects documented here

the price response to s p 500 index additions and deletions evidence of asymmetry and a new explanation we study the price effects of changes to the s p 500 index and document an asymmetric price response there is a permanent increase in the price of added firms but no permanent decline for deleted firms these results are at odds with extant explanations of the effects of index changes that imply a symmetric price response to additions and deletions a possible explanation for asymmetric price effects arises from the changes in investor awareness results from our empirical tests support the thesis that changes in investor awareness contribute to the asymmetric price effects of s p 500 index additions and deletions the long held assumption that stocks have perfect substitutes and the perfect elasticity of demand that follows from it is central to modern finance theory if securities have almost perfectly elastic demand then any supply or demand shocks that are devoid of information should have no effect on the prevailing price early empirical research on whether price changes occur in the absence of new information focused on block trades equity issues and stock splits but was unable to exclude information effects around these events since there is no obvious reason to believe ex ante that index changes contain new information they constitute a natural framework for testing whether stocks have almost perfectly elastic or horizontal demand curves a stock s excess return around such changes could be consistent with a downward sloping demand curve with the advent of indexed mutual funds in 1976 and the public announcement of s p index changes in the same year there is much evidence that such announcements are accompanied by an increase in price for firms added to the index if stocks have a short term downward sloping demand curve the price should be momentarily affected by a demand shock due to indexing but that effect

do demand curves for stocks slope down since september 1976 stocks newly included into the standard and poor s 500 index have earned a significant positive abnormal return at the announcement of the inclusion this return does not disappear for at least ten days after the inclusion the returns are positively related to measures of buying by index funds consistent with the hypothesis that demand curves for stocks slope down the returns are not related to s p s bond ratings which is inconsistent with a plausible version of the hypothesis that inclusion is a certification of the quality of the stock

are remittances a substitute for credit carrying the financial burden of health shocks in national and transnational households summary this paper tests for the assumption that remittances are a substitute for credit by comparing the response to health related shocks among national and transnational households using mexican household panel data while the occurrence of serious health shocks that required hospital treatment doubled the average debt burden of exposed households compared to the control group households with nuclear family members a parent child or spouse in the us did not increase their debts due to health shocks this finding is consistent with the view that remittances respond to households demand for financing emergencies and make them less reliant on debt financing

returning home after civil war food security and nutrition among burundian households abstractthis paper investigates the food security and nutritional status of formerly displaced households hhs using the 2006 core welfare indicator survey for burundi we compare their food intake and their level of expenses with that of their non displaced neighbours we test whether it is the duration of displacement that matters for current food security and nutritional status or the time lapsed since returning home we use log linear as well as propensity score matching and an instrumental variable approach to control for self selection bias we find that the individuals and hhs who returned home just before the time of the survey are worse off compared to those who returned several years earlier on average the formerly displaced have 5 per cent lower food expenses and 6 per cent lower calorie intake moreover we find evidence in favour of duration of displacement as the main mechanisms through which displacement affects hh welfare results are robust after controlling for self selection bias de

land retirement and nonfarm labor market participation an analysis of china s sloping land conversion program summary china s sloping land conversion program pays more than 32 million households to plant trees on highly erodible cropland and has effected major land use changes farmers retire land indefinitely but receive time limited subsidies after which they in principle enter nonfarm employment we analyze annual data we collected on over 3 000 individuals and plots from 1998 2006 which contain variation in enrollment timing and alternative measures of enrollment and conclude enrollment has a small but significant and robust positive effect on nonfarm employment it arises not from alleviating constraints as recent papers have suggested but rather from simple farm to nonfarm labor substitution

brain drain from turkey an investigation of students return intentions the emigration of skilled individuals from turkey attracted greater media attention and the interest of policymakers in turkey particularly after the experience of recurrent economic crises that have led to an increase in unemployment among the highly educated young this study estimates a model of return intentions using a data set compiled from an internet survey of turkish students residing abroad the findings of this study indicate that as expected higher salaries offered in the host country and lifestyle preferences including a more organized environment in the host country increase the probability of student nonreturn however the analysis also points to the importance of prior return intentions and the role of the family in the decision to return to turkey or stay overseas it is also found that the compulsory service requirement attached to government scholarships increases the probability of student return turkish student association membership also increases return intentions longer sta

asymmetric changes in stock prices and investor recognition around revisions to the s p 500 index this study finds that first time additions to the sp however companies upgraded from lesser known s p indices reentering the s p 500 or dropped from the index experience temporary price changes these price patterns can be explained by changes in investor recognition

defying the law of gravity the political economy of international migration bilateral flows of international migrants exhibit tremendous variance both across destination countries and over time to explain this variance studies of international migration tend to focus on economic determinants such as income differentials or on social conditions such as the presence of coethnics in certain destination countries the authors argue that migration is driven not solely by economic or social determinants rather the political environment across destinations plays a substantively large role in influencing bilateral migration flows they test the importance of the political environment citizenship rights and the prominence of right wing parties using data on migration flows from 178 origin countries into 18 destination countries over the period 1980 2006 they find even after controlling for a variety of economic social policy and international variables that variation in political environments across time and destination plays a key role in observed patterns of international migration

remitting behaviour of turkish migrants evidence from household data in germany this paper provides an empirical analysis of the remittances of turkish migrants using novel data from 589 households in berlin which holds the largest turkish community outside turkey the findings suggest that the remittances of turkish migrants are determined mainly by a combination of self interest and tempered altruism comparison of migrant groups who do and do not intend to return to turkey shows that those intending to return remit mostly for self interest and remit larger amounts while those with no such intention remit mainly due to implicit loan agreement within the family there is no evidence of pure altruism in any of the samples in addition remitters are more likely to increase the amount of remittances where they are to be spent on education and investment the same relationship does not hold for basic needs

fishing and nonfishing income decisions the role of human capital and family structure resource dependent households often diversify their income we model demand for remittances and supply of off resource labor as a joint decision and discuss household trade offs we extend the off farm labor supply literature to a rural fishery contrasting our results to common findings in the farm literature and providing empirical evidence of the interdependence between education and family structure in determining income diversification using a unique dataset from malaysia we find that more educated households are less likely to diversify their income with caveats depending on family composition policy implications for resource management in a remittance economy with alternative livelihoods are discussed