capital inflows financial structure and housing booms we use a panel var to study the effect of shocks to capital inflows which are identified using sign restrictions on the housing market in oecd countries to explore how effects of these shocks change with the structure of the mortgage market and the degree of mortgage securitization we allow the var coefficients to vary with mortgage market characteristics our results indicate that capital inflow shocks have a significant and positive effect on real house prices real credit available to the private sector and real residential investment the responses of these variables are stronger in countries with more developed mortgage markets and in countries where securitization is allowed

the dynamic cost and persistence of asset inequality in an agrarian economy abstract a growing literature suggests that asset inequality can be economically costly in the presence of agency costs that constrain labor and capital markets unclear in this literature is whether asset markets and optimal individual accumulation of self finance capacity suffice to eliminate costly inequality over time this paper uses numerical dynamic programming methods to explore this question with a model of an initially inegalitarian agrarian economy while an egalitarian asset distribution emerges over time the process involves sufficiently great productivity losses along the way that a redistributive policy could improve on the market s performance by both equity and efficiency criteria

capital flows in the euro area and target2 balances abstract this paper explores how the uneven recourse by national banking systems in the euro area to the ecb s unconventional refinancing operations that led to the accumulation of large target2 balances at the ncbs has contributed to the evolution of aggregate economic activity in important member states of the euro area for the period between 2008 and 2014 we estimate a panel var model and identify the structural shocks by means of sign restrictions our results suggest that the build up of target2 balances was driven mainly by capital flow shocks while being barely responsive to other aggregate shocks furthermore on the basis of counterfactual experiments we find that the ability to build up sizeable target2 liabilities has contributed substantially to avoiding deeper recessions in the distressed euro area member countries like spain italy ireland and portugal while to a smaller extent depressing aggregate economic activity in core member states such as germany the netherlands and finland

the political economy of international factor mobility we model the endogenous determination of policy towards international factor mobility in a common agency setting domestic interest groups bid for protection from the government and the incumbent politicians maximize a welfare function that depends both on domestic voters welfare and contributions collected we characterize equilibrium policies in the price space and show how the degree of complementarity among inputs determines the outcome we establish a similar result for quotas allowing for partial rent capturing for the strategic environment under consideration we also establish a general equivalence result between tariffs and quotas if capturing is complete d 2004 elsevier b v all rights reserved

can unobserved land quality explain the inverse productivity relationship abstract an inverse relationship between both farm productivity and labor intensity and farm size is a common empirical finding in developing country agriculture the traditional explanation has been imperfect labor markets recently it has been suggested instead that the inverse relationship is a statistical artifact resulting from omitted land quality using a farm level data set from java i investigate whether omitted variable bias can explain the inverse relationship i show that the inverse relationship and accompanying wage responses are inconsistent with a model of neoclassical farm behavior that ignores omitted variable bias instrumental variables techniques yield parameter estimates in which the inverse relationship is eliminated and the estimated wage elasticities are more in line with economic theory further econometric investigation hints that a model of omitted land quality may be a possible source of the inverse relationship these results emphasize the importance of considering the sources of cross sectional variation in estimating microeconomic relationships

oligarchy democracy inequality and growth abstract this paper analyses the dynamics of inequality democratization and economic development in a political economy model of growth where education is both the engine of growth and a determinant of political participation in a context with imperfect capital markets we investigate the incentives for an educated oligarchy to subsidize the poor s education and to initiate a democratic transition we characterize the equilibrium patterns of political institutions income distribution and growth as a function of the initial income and inequalities in particular we identify circumstances under which the elite promotes the endogenous emergence of a middle class for purely political economy reasons a simple linear infinite horizon framework is then presented in this setting we discuss the importance of historical dependence for long run social stratification and redistribution

can redistributive reform be achieved via market based voluntary land transfer schemes evidence and lessons from the philippines this article examines market led agrarian reform mlar and its variants in the form of voluntary land transfer schemes under the comprehensive agrarian reform program carp in the philippines analysis of mlar variants in the philippines offers a preview of what is likely to happen when the mlar model currently being pushed by the world bank is implemented in the real world not only do mlar and mlar like schemes fail to promote redistributive reform they also undermine potentially redistributive state led land reform policies

the global credit boom challenges for macroeconomics and policy the recent financial crisis has put the spotlight on the rapid rise in credit which preceded it in this paper we provide an empirical and theoretical analysis of the credit boom and the macroeconomic context in which it developed we find that the boom was unusually long and associated with neither particularly strong growth nor rising inflation in the economies in which it took place we show that this type of credit and financial cycle is hard to reconcile with existing economic theory and argue that while the global savings glut may account for the cycle s initial phase other factors such as the conduct of monetary policy and perceptions of declining macroeconomic risk were more important from the mid 2000s onwards we conclude by identifying some of the challenges now facing macroeconomics and policy

housing finance and monetary policy we document three facts concerning how the structure of housing finance affects the monetary transmission mechanism first the characteristics of residential mortgage markets differ markedly across industrialized countries second the impact of monetary policy shocks to residential investment and house prices is significantly stronger in those countries with larger flexibility development of mortgage markets third the transmission to consumption is stronger only in those countries where mortgage equity release is common and mortgage contracts are predominantly of the variable rate type we then build a two sector dsge model with financial constraints to rationalize those facts

do overlapping property rights reduce agricultural investment evidence from uganda the need for land related investment to ensure sustainable land management and increase productivity of land use is widely recognized however there is little rigorous evidence on the effects of property rights for increasing agricultural productivity and contributing toward poverty reduction in africa whether and by how much overlapping property rights reduce investment incentives and the scope for policies to counter such disincentives are thus important policy issues using information on parcels under ownership and usufruct by the same household from a nationally representative survey in uganda the authors find significant disincentives associated with overlapping property rights on short and long term investments the paper combines this result with information on crop productivity to obtain a rough estimate of the magnitudes involved the authors make suggestions on ways to eliminate such inefficiencies

public pensions and immigration policy in a democracy the paper analyzes the link between the public pension system and the immigration policy in a pay as you go system the incentives for immigration vary significantly between individuals at different lifetime periods in the framework of an overlapping generations model we show that the median voter s choice in general leads to inefficient levels of immigration the median voter neglects the effects of the externalities within the pension system on other generations an immigration policy that is not affected by the median voter s choice but instead is constitutionally determined will avoid welfare losses the expected lifetime income of each generation can be increased by applying a rule of steady immigration

determinants and consequences of land reform implementation in the philippines abstract unlike the experience of other developing countries land reform in the philippines has been successful in converting many of share tenants to land reform beneficiaries this study indicates that the implementation of land reform is positively associated with yield growth made possible by the adoption of modern seed fertilizer technology a major reason underlying such association is considered to be an increased economic interest of tenants in land reform arising from divergence of rental value of land from leasehold rent and amortization fees prescribed by law

can democracy induce development a constitutional perspective we examine the constitutional design required for democratic societies to overcome poverty traps restricting agenda setting by ensuring subsistence levels of consumption and applying simple majority voting as a decision rule will not enable a society to overcome poverty we show that a combination of suitable constitutional rules can however overcome poverty and induce economic well being besides majority voting these rules include rotating agenda setting agenda repetition and tax protection rules we thus highlight the crucial role of democratic institutions for economic development

economic benefits and costs of land redistribution in zimbabwe in the early 1980s summary evidence on the performance of zimbabwe s early land reform effort is mixed in this paper we use a unique micro data set with information on land reform beneficiaries and a control group of nonbeneficiaries and employ propensity score matching to examine household and per capita benefits associated with land reform combining this information with estimates on the cost of land reform we find that the economic return is positive but modest its magnitude depends on assumptions about the opportunity costs of land and the reasons for the observed increase in the size of resettled households

trade education and growth the small country case this paper develops optimal educational and trade policies for a small open economy capable of growth a theoretical structure previously used for the analysis of education and growth in closed economies manning 1975 1976 1978 1979a 1979b 1981b is extended to do this the analysis is aggregative it differs from that of a similar problem by aarrestad 1978 by allowing for heterogeneity of the labor force recently henry 1979 and henry and manning 1980 developed the model of this paper to permit the endogenous determination of international commodity prices but only in the context of balanced growth all of these papers belong to a small literature on aggregative aspects of education and growth other examples of which include aarrestad 1975 hu 1976 razin 1972a 1972b tu 1969 1970 and uzawa 1965 oniki and uzawa 1965 is the classic extension of the heckscher ohlin theory of international trade to permit growth in models of their type production possibilities are given instantaneously and are altered over time by factor accumulation educational policy affects the production possibility set in two ways an increase in educational activity reduces the factors available to produce traded goods and so shrinks the production possibility set immediately in the longer term the level of skill is altered so changing the production possibility set both the size and shape of the production possibility set are determined statically and dynamically by educational policy mcmillan 1978 has recently presented a model of public intermediate goods trade and growth with the same property a problem like this is considered in manning 1981a for a general model of capital accumulation and growth the structure of this paper is as follows the model and optimality conditions are first presented growth is then analyzed and it is found that specialization is the most likely pattern of production a deeper investigation of the economics of the model explains this conclusion some concluding remarks are then made details of the lengthy mathematical proofs of two propositions are relegated to a mathematical appendix

the welfare state migration and voting rights this paper proposes a political economic analysis of public opinion in european union countries toward migrants from poor countries by focusing on redistributive policy the analysis sheds light on specific determinants of public opinion the theoretical analysis based on the median voter framework shows that one of the key variables affecting public opinion is the voting rights of migrants where migrants do not have the right to vote their presence negatively impacts the poorest natives in countries where migrants enjoy voting rights they are able to vote on redistributive policy therefore the impact of migration on natives welfare is fundamentally different after the theoretical analysis the paper proposes an empirical analysis of europeans attitudes toward non western migrants in european union countries this empirical analysis confirms the decisive impact of migrants voting rights it shows that in eu countries the more educated natives are significantly less favorable to migrants from poor countries when the latter have the right to vote

land reforms poverty reduction and economic growth evidence from india recognition of the importance of institutions that provide security of property rights and relatively equal access to economic resources to a broad cross section of society has renewed interest in the potential of asset redistribution including land reforms empirical analysis of the impact of such policies is however scant and often contradictory this paper uses panel household data from india together with state level variation in the implementation of land reform to address some of the deficiencies of earlier studies the results suggest that land reform had a significant and positive impact on income growth and accumulation of human and physical capital the paper draws policy implications especially from the fact that the observed impact of land reform seems to have declined over time

public pensions and return migration in a median voter framework with pensions and immigration we show that only few unskilled immigrants are allowed into the country because the unskilled native median voter is concerned with negative effects on his or her wage but not with the positive effects to other groups in society when return migration is allowed for the median voter is more willing to accept immigration because he or she can shift some of the burden to future generations

limits of floating exchange rates the role of foreign currency debt and import structure abstract a traditional argument in favor of flexible exchange rates is that they insulate output better from real shocks because the exchange rate can adjust and stabilize demand for domestic goods through expenditure switching this argument is weakened in models with high foreign currency debt and low exchange rate pass through to import prices the present study evaluates the empirical relevance of these two factors we analyze the transmission of real external shocks to the domestic economy under fixed and flexible exchange rate regimes for a broad sample of countries in a panel var and let the responses vary with foreign currency debt and import structure we find that flexible exchange rates do not insulate output better from external shocks if the country imports mainly low pass through goods and foreign indebtedness is high

bank integration and co movements across housing markets this paper investigates whether bank integration measured by cross border bank flows can capture the co movements across housing markets in developed countries by using a spatial dynamic panel model the transmission can occur through a global banking channel in which global banks intermediate wholesale funding to local banks changes in financial conditions are passed across borders through the banks balance sheet exposure to credit currency maturity and funding risks resulting in house price spillovers while controlling for country level and global factors we find significant co movement across housing markets of countries with proportionally high bank integration bank integration can better capture house price co movements than other measures of economic integration once we account for bank exposure other spatial linkages traditionally used to account for return co movements across region such as trade foreign direct investment portfolio investment geographic proximity etc become insignificant moreover we find that the co movement across housing markets decreases for countries with less developed mortgage markets characterized by fixed mortgage rate contracts low limits of loan to value ratios and no mortgage equity withdrawal

the limits to land reform the land acts in ireland 1870 1909 ireland experienced two great waves of land reform during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries land reform was a central demand of irish political factions of the time and by acceding to this demand successive british governments hoped to pacify ireland this article reconsiders the economic significance of the several irish land reform measures by examining them in the context of economic theory and by comparing them to other land reform episodes in currently developing countries and in european history the irish reforms contained little that could better the allocation of resources and so had little impact on economic efficiency even though the end result was the creation of a class of peasant proprietors operating in a free market the analysis focuses on the structure of the laws and their relation to irish institutions although we also discuss the aggregate evidence on the evolution of agricultural efficiency following the reforms moreover the irish legislation missed an important opportunity to improve smallholders access to credit some facets of the land legislation interacting with some unusual institutional features of land tenure in ireland made credit conditions worse land reform in ireland was much more a wealth redistribution program financed by britain than a serious effort to improve the efficiency of agriculture land tenure and land reform occupy central roles in both the history and historiography of the political struggles that culminated in the partition of ireland in the 1920s successive waves of irish politicians sought to harness essentially nationalist ambitions to the more mundane dissatisfactions of the irish farmer convincing the latter that economic prosperity required alterations to or complete abolition of an agrarian system

income distribution and macroeconomics this paper analyzes the role of wealth distribution in macroeconomics through investment in human capital it is shown that in the presence of credit markets imperfections and indivisibilities in investment in human capital the initial distribution of wealth affects aggregate output and investment both in the short and in the long run as there are multiple steady states this paper therefore provides an additional explanation for the persistent differences in per capita output across countries furthermore the paper shows that cross country differences in macroeconomic adjustment to aggregate shocks can be attributed among other factors to differences in wealth and income distribution across countries

efficiency and equity impacts of rural land rental restrictions evidence from india recognition of the potentially deleterious implications of inequality in opportunity originating in a skewed asset distribution has spawned considerable interest in land reforms however little attention has been devoted to fact that in the longer term the measures used to implement land reforms could negatively affect productivity use of state level data on rental restrictions together with a nationally representative survey from india suggests that contrary to original intentions rental restrictions negatively affect productivity and equity the restrictions reduce the scope for efficiency enhancing rental transactions that benefit poor producers simulations suggest that by doubling the number of producers with access to land through rental from about 15 million currently liberalization of rental markets could have far reaching impacts

dis accords the politics of market assisted land reforms in chiapas mexico abstract in spring 2003 the world bank published a major statement on land reform policy reflecting powerful new institutional support for market assisted land reforms this article uses the case of land conflicts in chiapas mexico and their resolution through market assisted agrarian accords to critically examine this new policy current using fine grained case studies and ethnography rather than the national crossnational studies typically used to assess market assisted land reform this article finds no grounds for the foundational claim that decentralized market assisted land reforms are inherently less politicized than state led land reforms despite claims to the contrary proponents of the new policy deploy one dimensional understandings of politics and the political construction of markets that gloss the ways community and markets are highly politicized sites where actors play out multiple territorial projects

premature deagriculturalisation land inequality and rural dependency in limpopo province south africa cross national regressions reveal abnormally low agricultural workforce shares given gnp in developing countries that had historically concentrated land into large capital intensive farms we argue that such deagriculturalisation was premature since its concomitant labour shedding has undesirable outcomes in a new south african survey a large proportion of rural households and working age persons was dependent relying for income almost wholly on either migrant remittances or pensions a separate group with less poverty and unemployment relied mainly on local including own farm income the group was heavily over represented in one of the three regions where many more households had significant land

macro financial linkages the role of the institutional framework abstract in this paper we assess the quantitative impact of various financial shocks on the real activity and explicitly address the issue of heterogeneity in the macro financial linkages for that purpose we use var models as well as the local projection method for 18 oecd countries based on quarterly data between 1995 and 2014 we take into account three main dimensions of the institutional framework likely to explain the observed cross country heterogeneity in the propagation of financial shocks the product market regulation the employment protection and the financial structure our main findings indicate that financial shocks have a stronger impact in countries characterized by a higher competition friendly regulatory stance a stronger employment protection and a more market oriented financial structure we also show that the varieties of capitalism described by the particular mix of different institutional arrangements do not play a significant role in shaping the macro financial linkages this result suggests that although considered individually goods labor and financial markets regulations are robustly linked to macroeconomic fluctuations there is no prima facie evidence for superior performance of any given mix of institutional arrangements observed in oecd countries

do interest groups affect us immigration policy while anecdotal evidence suggests that interest groups play a key role in shaping immigration policy there is no systematic empirical analysis of this issue in this paper we construct an industry level dataset for the united states by combining information on the number of temporary work visas with data on lobbying activity associated with immigration we find robust evidence that both pro and anti immigration interest groups play a statistically significant and economically relevant role in shaping migration policy across sectors barriers to migration are lower in sectors in which business interest groups incur larger lobbying expenditures and higher in sectors where labor unions are more important

does the welfare state affect individual attitudes toward immigrants evidence across countries abstract this paper analyzes welfare state determinants of individual attitudes toward immigrants within and across countries and their interaction with labor market drivers of preferences we consider two mechanisms through which a redistributive welfare system might adjust as a result of immigration under the first model immigration has a larger impact on high income individuals while under the second one low income individuals are those most affected individual attitudes are consistent with the first welfare state model and with labor market determinants in countries where immigration is unskilled income is negatively correlated with pro immigration preferences while skill is positively correlated with them these relationships are reversed in economies characterized by skilled migration

optimal immigration education and growth in the long run abstract the paper extends manning s model on education and balanced growth to include labour immigration each immigration unit is assumed to consist of one skilled worker and some unskilled members the optimal immigration policy which maximizes the per capita steady state consumption of the host country is derived we show that optimal immigration policy can reduce the steady state skilled labour ratio more interesting still contrary to the widespread belief that immigration of skilled workers hurts local skilled workers it is the unskilled local workers whose interests are threatened by optimal immigration policy

property rights and the political organization of agriculture we propose a general equilibrium model where the economic organization of agriculture and the political equilibrium determining the security of property rights are jointly determined in particular because the form of organization may affect the probability and distribution of benefits from future property challenges it may be shaped in anticipation of this impact property rights security may then be secured at the expense of economic efficiency the model provides a framework for understanding why in some contexts land is redistributed primarily via land sales and tenancy markets but via politics and conflict in others we test some implications of the theory using a five decade panel dataset that traces changes in the extent of tenancy and tenancy reform across 15 indian states

bridging trade theory and labour econometrics the effects of international migration this paper surveys current theoretical and empirical research on international migration with a particular emphasis on the links between trade theory and labour empirics

history institutions and economic performance the legacy of colonial land tenure systems in india we analyze the colonial land revenue institutions set up by the british in india and show that differences in historical property rights institutions lead to sustained differences in economic outcomes areas in which proprietary rights in land were historically given to landlords have significantly lower agricultural investments and productivity in the post independence period than areas in which these rights were given to the cultivators these areas also have significantly lower investments in health and education these differences are not driven by omitted variables or endogeneity problems they probably arise because differences in historical institutions lead to very different policy choices

house prices borrowing constraints and monetary policy in the business cycle i develop a general equilibrium model with sticky prices credit constraints nominal loans and asset prices changes in asset prices modify agents borrowing capacity through collateral value changes in nominal prices affect real repayments through debt deflation monetary policy shocks move asset and nominal prices in the same direction and are amplified and propagated over time the financial accelerator is not constant across shocks nominal debt stabilises supply shocks making the economy less volatile when the central bank controls the interest rate i discuss the role of equity debt indexation and household and firm leverage in the propagation mechanism finally i find that monetary policy should not target asset prices as a means of reducing output and inflation volatility

the role of land reform in economic development policies and politics as the extensive literature on the subject attests the issue of land reform has been and remains heatedly debated 1 the latest massive demonstration of interest came with the 1979 world conference on agrarian reform and rural development where representatives of no less than 145 nations and three liberation movements agreed that equitable distribution and efficient use of land are indispensable for rural development for the mobilization of human resources and for increased production for the alleviation of poverty fao at one time or another but especially since 1960 virtually every country in the world has passed land reform laws yet the record is far more modest than the promise a in spite of decades if not centuries tuma of land reform activities landownership remains extremely skewed concentration of landownership is almost universally increasing the mass of landless is growing rapidly and the extent of rural poverty and malnutrition has reached horrendous proportions and b in spite of widespread agreement on the need for land reform there are virtually no significant ongoing land reform programs except under extreme political pressures revolutionary in el salvador and postrevolutionary in nicaragua mozambique and angola in several countries the progressive gains achieved by land reform programs are being either eroded by the forces of economic growth mexico venezuela and south korea or purposefully canceled by public policies chile the question i want to explore in this paper is why this blatant discrepancy between rhetoric and reality or to put it another way why is land reform no longer a significant policy issue even though it remains an important political issue in most countries of the world 2 to answer we need first to explore in a positive sense what has been the nature of different land reforms that occurred in the past what were their purposes achievements and limits this will be done by developing a typology of land reforms in the third world because it is essential to distinguish carefully among a wide variety of reforms following the approach of political economy i will do this in the context of modes of production social class structure and types of land tenure

how does financial liberalisation affect the influence of monetary policy on the current account abstract does the current account improve or deteriorate following a monetary policy expansion we examine this issue theoretically and empirically we show that a standard open economy dsge model predicts that the current account response to a monetary policy shock depends on the degree of financial regulation in particular financial liberalisation makes it more likely that the current account deteriorates following a monetary expansion we test this theoretical prediction with a varying coefficient bayesian panel var model where the coefficients are allowed to vary as a function of the degree of financial product and labour market regulation on data from 1976q1 2006q4 for 19 oecd countries our empirical results support the theory we therefore conclude that following a monetary policy expansion the current account is more likely to go into deficit in countries with more liberalised financial markets

voting on low skill immigration under different pension regimes depending on the design of the domestic pension system and thetype of immigrants voters will decide differently onimmigration policy in this paper we investigate the votingoutcome of three groups of heterogeneous voters skilledworkers unskilled workers and retirees under beveridgian orbismarckian pension systems which are either of the fixedcontribution rate or the fixed replacement ratio type we findthat while the use of a beveridge or bismarck system does notchange the results qualitatively the fixed contribution ratevs fixed replacement ratio distinction leads to substantialchanges in the optimal choices of different groups

land reform as commenced business the evidence against stopping abstract in the new paradigm institutions are long term endogenous thus the aims of land reform must be compatible with replace or substitute for initial incentives and power structures many reforms e g compulsory collectives are not redefinition of land reform is therefore needed yet the case for private land redistribution with ceilings remains the inverse relationship rests firmly on lower cost labor transactions in small farms though large but competitive transport or processing firms which enjoy lower cost capital transactions may be needed crucial is the impact of the postreform structure on livelihoods especially for the growing rural majority near landless workers new style market based reforms have potential probably best combined with old style ceilings substantial compensation with urban taxpayers sharing costs alternative off farm prospects and progressive taxes on large landholdings or bequests

land reform income redistribution and agricultural production in korea jeon yoong deok kim young yong january 2000 land reform income redistribution and agricultural production in korea articles chicago u s university of chicago 18

drawing conclusions from structural vector autoregressions identified on the basis of sign restrictions abstract this paper discusses the problems associated with using information about the signs of certain magnitudes as a basis for drawing structural conclusions in vector autoregressions we also review available tools to solve these problems for illustration we use dahlhaus and vasishtha s 2019 study of the effects of a u s monetary contraction on capital flows to emerging markets we explain why sign restrictions alone are not enough to allow us to answer the question and suggest alternative approaches that could be used

dynamics of the trade balance and the terms of trade the j curve the authors provide a theoretical interpretation of two features of international data the countercyclical movements in net exports and the tendency for the trade balance to be negatively correlated with current and future movements in terms of trade but positively correlated with past movements they document the same properties in a two country stochastic growth model in which trade fluctuations reflect in large part the dynamics of capital formation the authors find that their general equilibrium perspective is essential the relation between the trade balance and the terms of trade depends critically on the source of fluctuations copyright 1994 by american economic association

going beyond crosscountry averages growth inequality and poverty reduction in the philippines summary this paper analyzes the processes of growth and poverty reduction simultaneously under a neoclassical growth model framework using provincial data from the philippines we obtain a high rate of provincial income convergence and a tradeoff between equity and growth the lack of political competition inhibits growth land reform is positively associated with growth and poverty reduction while higher agricultural terms of trade facilitate poverty reduction the growth elasticity of poverty reduction is low by international standards but is sensitive to sectoral income composition and initial conditions in poverty incidence mortality rate and irrigation coverage

the food in security impact of land redistribution in south africa microeconometric evidence from national data summary the south african land reform program has been widely criticized for its slow pace as well as its apparent lack of contribution to poverty reduction no econometric evidence of the impact of land transfers has been provided to date and this paper attempts to fill this gap by considering the impact of receiving a land grant on households food insecurity propensity score matching and univariate probit estimates using two national household surveys indicate that on average land grant recipients are more food insecure than comparable non participants recursive bivariate probit estimates suggest that selection bias is not driving this result

does sharecropping affect long term investment evidence from west bengal s tenancy reforms in india land reform has been high on the political agenda since independence in 1947 and early efforts at abolishing intermediaries are widely credited with having brought about significant social benefits the most prominent type is tenancy reform as it does not extinguish landlords ownership rights tenants who may have benefited from rent ceilings and cannot be evicted still have to pay annual share rent this weakness of rights may fail to create the incentives for effort supply and long term investment that have underpinned the success of land reforms elsewhere effectively adding a dynamic inefficiency to the disincentives created by the marshallian inefficiency of sharecropping this could imply that despite the high political price of implementing land reform in india the schemes so far have failed to reach their productivity and poverty reduction potential

the effect of immigration quotas on the average quality of migrating labor and income distribution in this paper the authors develop a simple two country single period model to study the effect of quota restrictions on the composition of migrating labor they have divided the migrant population in two general categories called high skilled and low skilled and have shown that free migration of any category of labor occurs if and only if the countrys share of world resources is different from its share of the world labor endowment in that category two possible outcomes given differing labor endowments and income differentials are considered the potential effect of illegal immigration is also noted the authors conclude that their model is applicable not only to brain drain problems but also to guest worker programs and or the mass migration of low skilled workers from poor countries to rich countries excerpt

the credit crisis conjectures about causes and remedies what caused the financial crisis that is sweeping across the world what keeps asset prices and lending depressed what can be done to remedy matters while it is too early to arrive at definite answers to these questions it is certainly time to offer informed conjectures and these are the focus of this paper this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

revisiting forever gained income dynamics in the resettlement areas of zimbabwe 1983 96 this study examines income dynamics for a panel of households resettled on former white owned farms in the aftermath of zimbabwe s independence there are four core findings i over a 13 year period 1983 96 there has been an impressive accumulation of assets and a dramatic increase of crop incomes ii the rise of crop incomes is partly due to asset accumulation but largely to increased asset returns hi differences between households in initial conditions such as previous farming experience have few persistent effects and iv income growth has been widely shared income inequality has fallen sharply and the largest percentage increases in incomes are recorded by households that initially had the lowest incomes

mending the broken link heterogeneous bank lending rates and monetary policy pass through abstract we analyse the pass through of monetary policy measures to lending rates to households and firms in the euro area using novel bank level datasets banks characteristics such as the capital ratio exposure to domestic sovereign debt percentage of non performing loans and stability of funding structure are responsible for the heterogeneity in the pass through of conventional monetary policy changes the location of a bank is irrelevant non standard measures reduce lending rate heterogeneities banks located in financially stressed countries and with weak balance sheets are most affected banks lending margins have fallen considerably

controlling migration in an open labor market a direct immigration policy is no longer feasiblefor a single region in a common labor market within apolitical economy approach this paper focuses on the question ofwhether migration can be controlled through the composition ofgovernment expenditures taking into account both capital and laborincome it turns out that the median voter s income is u shaped in thenumber of immigrants therefore the government can eitherprovide less of the goods preferred by foreigners in order to minimizeimmigration or carry out an active immigration policy byshifting its expenditures towards those publicly provided goods thepaper identifies the factors that determine the government schoice between the two strategies

immigration and payg pension systems in the presence of increasing life expectancy abstract according to lacomba and lagos 2010 considering the effect of immigration on pension benefits of native individuals despite immigrants having low average productivity an open borders policy would be always implemented since most of current domestic cohorts gain from immigration in this paper we change the demographic assumptions at the bases of the model of lacomba and lagos 2010 assuming increasing life expectancy over time as a consequence we find that in the presence of pay as you go pension systems there are cases in which an open borders policy would not be implemented and that retirement age and immigrants skill play an important role in determining the effect of immigration on the welfare of native population

a study in resistance to institutional change the lost game of latin american land reform abstract this paper seeks an explanation of the limited success of land reforms in redistributing land in latin america during the 1960s and 1970s in spite of their widespread implementation a rational choice model of farmer behavior incorporating transaction costs on labor and credit and a game theoretical approach between landlords and the state are used for that purpose we show that land reform failed to be redistributive because it sought to first modernize large farms which allowed landlords to reinforce their power over the state this in turn enabled them either to obtain credible commitments of nonexpropriation if they would modernize or to successfully use rent seeking to externalize the cost of modernization and make expropriation with compensation no longer feasible

the rise in unemployment a multi country study one of the most remarkable features of recent economic history has been the remorseless rise in unemployment throughout the industrialized countries however while the trend to higher unemployment is universal the experience of individual countries also differs widely the increase is especially marked within the european community where unemployment rates rival those reached in the interwar years by contrast in the scandinavian countries and japan unemployment is lower and has risen very much less experience in the united states lies somewhere between these extremes and in the last few years unemployment there has fallen sharply

honey i shrunk the kids benefits revisiting intergenerational conflict in oecd countries intergenerational conflict may arise when the interests of different age groups do not align we examine cross country data to find evidence for this conflict in oecd countries we derive our results from a fgls estimation model which is complemented by a system gmm estimation to account for potential endogeneity the data are from a panel of 22 oecd countries over the time period 1985 2005 we find little support for intergenerational conflict in general however those who are close to statutory retirement age dislike public expenditure on families and education because once they retire they will have less income compared to their work income this effect is transitory however implying a change in voting behavior during retirement age

on the political economy of immigration the authors study how immigration policies that impose capital and skill requirements would be determined under majority voting when native agents differ in their wealth holdings and vote to maximize their income the results of the model calculations indicate that the native population will be polarized between those who would like an immigration policy to maximize the domestic capital labor ratio and those who would like an immigration policy that would minimize it

land distribution and international agricultural productivity the unequal distribution of agricultural land is often cited as a source of inefficiency in agriculture previous cross country studies of agricultural productivity differences though have not considered land inequality this article addresses this issue by using cross country data on inequality in operational holdings of agricultural land from deininger and squire 1998 in an estimation of an agricultural production function the gini coefficient for land holdings is found to have a significant negative relationship with productivity this is consistent with the existence of heterogeneity in productivity by farm size within countries a one standard deviation drop in the gini coefficient implies an increase in productivity of 8 5

immigration and pension benefits in the host country this paper examines the role that low skilled immigration plays in determining pension benefits of the host population with an overlapping generations model which allows identifying which groups of native population are in favour or against immigration we find that despite immigrants having low average productivity an open borders policy would be implemented since most of current domestic cohorts gain from immigration only younger workers might be against immigration since they will coincide with immigrants in their retirement periods moreover we show how a larger immigrant quota would increase the probability of a pareto improvement for the current domestic population

public pensions and voting on immigration in a recent paper scholten and thum 1996 analyze the impact of a pay as you go payg pension system with a fixed replacement ratio on the immigration policy in a democracy we extend the analysis of median voter s choice in two respects first in contrast to scholten and thum 1996 who assume myopic voting behavior our paper considers fully rational agents and provides a solution under this more complex behavioral assumption voting with rational agents yields a more liberal immigration policy than with myopic voters second we examine a different decision structure with a fixed contribution rate to the pension system in this case the majority rule leads to a completely different solution

competition and credit procyclicality in european banking abstract this paper empirically assesses how competition in the banking sector affects credit procyclicality by estimating both an interacted panel var model using macroeconomic data and a single equation model with bank level data these two empirical approaches show that a deviation of actual gdp from potential gdp leads to greater credit fluctuations in economies where bank competition is weak this suggests that increased market power for banks increases the financial accelerator mechanism which is consistent with recent macroeconomic models showing that monopolistic banking tends to increase macroeconomic volatility by making credit cheaper during booms and more expensive during recessions

the real exchange rate and economic growth revisiting the case using external instruments abstract we investigate the impact of movements in the real exchange rate on economic growth based on five year average data for a panel of over 150 countries in the post bretton woods period unlike previous literature we use external instruments to deal with possible reverse causality from growth to the real exchange rate our country specific instruments are i global capital flows interacted with individual countries financial openness and ii the growth rate of official reserves we find that a real appreciation depreciation reduces raises significantly annual real gdp growth more than in previous estimates in the literature however our results confirm this effect only for developing countries and for pegs

the structural dynamics of output growth and inflation some international evidence we examine the dynamics of output growth and inflation in the us euro area and uk using a structural time varying coefficient var there are important similarities in structural inflation dynamics across countries output growth dynamics differ swings in the magnitude of inflation and output growth volatilities and persistences are accounted for by a combination of three structural shocks changes over time in the structure of the economy are limited and permanent variations largely absent changes in the volatilities of structural shocks matter

agricultural productivity growth rural economic diversity and economic reforms india 1970 2000 a salient theme in d gale johnson s work is the importance of agricultural development for general prosperity and for economic diversification e g johnson 2000 johnson has also noted that most of the world s poor are engaged in farming so that a key focus of development policy is to raise the incomes of farmers from a global perspective increasing the productivity of agriculture given the fixity of land is necessary for both poverty reduction and the development of the nonagricultural sector at the level of the world agricultural productivity gains poverty reduction and the growth of the nonfarm sector are complements however the question remains whether these observations imply that every poor country should focus its public resources on agricultural development in order to raise the incomes of people now engaged in farming and whether such a policy is necessary for obtaining economic diversity in this article we use the experience of india over the past 30 years to address the issue of whether agricultural technical change actually leads to economic diversification and income growth within the rural sector in the context of an open economy country in which there are cross area trade and capital flows we focus in particular on the rural sector because this is the sector in which linkages between agricultural and nonagricultural sectors are thought to be the strongest we exploit the fact that india has maintained a policy of openness with respect to agricultural technology over this period permitting and actively supporting agricultural development and has moved to a reformed regime in which goods are traded and capital is more mobile in the 1990s evidence on the relationship between agricultural growth and nonfarm

immigration and income redistribution a political economy analysis this paper examines the effect of immigration on the extent of income redistribution via majority voting on the income tax the tax outcome depends on the size of the native majority and the initial amount of redistribution in the economy which in turn determines the skill composition of immigrants as a main result we derive conditions for multiple tax equilibria if the native majority of either skilled or unskilled is not too strong and immigrants are allowed to vote both a high tax and a low tax outcome is possible in a referendum natives will then vote against immigrant voting at best natives are indifferent towards immigrant voting

the euro area government spending multiplier at the effective lower bound abstract we build a factor augmented interacted panel vector autoregressive model of the euro area ea and estimate it with bayesian methods to compute government spending multipliers the multipliers are contingent on the overall monetary policy stance captured by a shadow monetary policy rate whether the fiscal shock occurs when the economy is at the effective lower bound elb or in normal times matters for the size of the multiplier median estimates vary conditional on the specification but the difference between multipliers at the elb and in normal times is systematically positive with very high probability over the medium run 5 years median cumulated multipliers range between 0 3 and 1 4 in normal times and between 1 6 and 2 9 at the elb we show that the results are not driven by the state of the business cycle and that the multiplier is inversely correlated with the level of the shadow monetary policy rate the econometric approach deals with several technical problems highlighted in the empirical macroeconomic literature including the issues of fiscal foresight and limited information

characteristics and performance of resettlement programs a review abstract this review suggests that settlement programs are too often designed with the assumption that all settlers will succeed this has led to centralized administration and rigid designs rather than decentralized approaches flexibility in implementation support for spontaneous settlement and reliance on settlers own investment capacity collective farms have failed cropland is best allocated to individual families and their land rights must be clearly defined as ownership or long term leases farm sizes have to be flexibly adjusted to skills availability of family labor and the capital assets of the families settlers should therefore be allowed to sell or rent their land to other beneficiaries if poor settlers are to succeed settlement cannot be based solely on credit finance and provision must be made for grant elements paternalistic constraints on crop choice technology marketing or labor market participation have usually not been enforceable or have had adverse effects

comparative advantage information and the allocation of workers to tasks evidence from an agricultural labour market we use data from an agricultural labour market in which workers receive both time and piece rate wages and shift frequently among employers and tasks to assess the roles of comparative advantage information problems and preferences in determining the allocation of workers the estimates which impose minimal structure not implied by economic theory are consistent with a one factor productivity model and indicate that information asymmetries are present but workers are sorted according to comparative advantage in particular the disproportionate presence of female workers in weeding activities is due not to worker or employer preferences but to comparative advantage and statistical discrimination

a theory of trickle down growth and development this paper develops a model of growth and income inequalities in the presence of imperfect capital markets and it analyses the trickle down effect of capital accumulation moral hazard with limited wealth constraints on the part of the borrowers is the source of both capital market imperfections and the emergence of persistent income inequalities three main conclusions are obtained from this model first when the rate of capital accumulation is sufficiently high the economy converges to a unique invariant wealth distribution second even though the trickle down mechanism can lead to a unique steady state distribution under laissez faire there is room for government intervention in particular redistribution of wealth from rich lenders to poor and middle class borrowers improves the production efficiency of the economy both because it brings about greater equality of opportunity and also because it accelerates the trickle down process third the process of capital accumulation initially has the effect of widening inequalities but in later stages it reduces them in other words this model can generate a kuznets curve

the effect of immigration on public finances the impact of immigration on the public finances is an important influence on public opinion this study aims to provide a thorough conceptual survey pointing out the complexities of a full understanding and the relevance of indirect effects and covering both static perspectives and longer run dynamic issues it considers simple accounting approaches which are relatively neglectful of behavioural responses but also tries to bring out the complexities in the nature of the relationship between immigration and the public exchequer that come with more sophisticated modelling of its economic effects

empowerment and efficiency tenancy reform in west bengal the paper analyzes the effect of agricultural tenancy laws offering security of tenure to tenants and regulating the share of output that is paid as rent on farm productivity theoretically the net impact of tenancy reform is shown to be a combination of two effects a bargaining power effect and a security of tenure effect analysis of evidence on how contracts and productivity changed after a tenancy reform program was implemented in the indian state of west bengal in the late 1970s suggests that tenancy reform had a positive effect on agricultural productivity there

house prices capital inflows and macroprudential policy this paper evaluates the monetary and macroprudential policies that mitigate the procyclicality arising from the interlinkages between current account deficits and financial vulnerabilities we develop a two country dynamic stochastic general equilibrium dsge model with heterogeneous households and collateralised debt the model predicts that external shocks are important in driving current account deficits that are coupled with run ups in house prices and household debt in this context optimal policy features an interest rate response to credit and a ltv ratio that countercyclically responds to house price dynamics by allowing an interest rate response to changes in financial variables the monetary policy authority improves social welfare because of the large welfare gains accrued to the savers the additional use of a countercyclical ltv ratio that responds to house prices increases the ability of borrowers to smooth consumption over the cycle and is pareto improving domestic and foreign shocks account for a similar fraction of the welfare gains delivered by such a policy

does land fragmentation increase the cost of cultivation evidence from india although a large literature discusses the productivity effects of land fragmentation measurement and potential endogeneity issues are often overlooked this paper uses several measures of fragmentation and controls for endogeneity and crop choice by looking at inherited paddy and wheat plots to show that these issues matter empirically while crop choice can mitigate effects fragmentation as measured by the simpson index increases production cost and fosters substitution of labor for machinery especially for small and medium farmers greater distances between fragments have a smaller effect creating opportunities for market based consolidation could be one step to limit fragmentation induced cost increases

explaining agricultural and agrarian policies in developing countries the paper describes and as far as possible explains variations in policies programs and institutions that influence agricultural growth agrarian relations and rural welfare across developing countries and over time it evaluates the impact of distorted policy patterns on agricultural production and rural poverty and identifies conditions under which policy reforms meant to bring about greater efficiency and equity are likely to be initiated and sustained it draws upon a broad range of literature to show how material conditions missing markets and government policies affect static welfare outcomes patterns of accumulation state formation and the establishment of political institutions it suggests ways to improve policy advice and proposes directions for future research

do effective state business relations matter for economic growth evidence from indian states summary effective state business relations are a set of highly institutionalised responsive and public interactions between the state and the business sector this paper examines the impact of effective state business relations on economic growth across indian states over the period 1985 2006 we propose a measure that captures the various dimensions of effective state business relations at the sub national level and estimate standard growth regressions using dynamic panel data methods our results show that effective state business relations contribute significantly to economic growth and appear to be driven by the intensity of the interactions between the state and the private sector

ageing migration and endogenous public pensions abstract this paper analyses migration behaviour of mobile workers in reaction to population ageing we show that the conventional wisdom that a decrease in fertility will lead to a rise in wages and thus to an inflow of immigrants that mitigates the adverse effects of ageing on public pensions may not hold if labour is heterogeneous moreover we demonstrate that if public pensions are endogenous i e if ageing leads the elderly to successfully lobby for higher taxes it may take several generations before a steady state is reached and the initial migration flow may be opposite to the steady state migration

the relation between farm size and farm productivity the role of family labor supervision and credit constraints abstract the paper shows that if the performance of hired farmhands is affected by supervision from family members and if the availability of credit is dependent on the amount of land owned then a systematic positive or negative relationship between per acre yields and farm size will prevail a model with no supervision effects on labor productivity would predict that yields are unaffected by farm size the paper also investigates the relation between land utilization and owned holding size when land rental possibilities are limited results are shown to be compatible with various observed patterns in ldcs