Immigration quotas and immigrant selection

Several factors influenced the composition of migrants in the early 20th century, including World War I, the Literacy Act of 1917, and the implementation of strict immigration quotas. This paper examines whether the United States' first immigration quota, established under the Emergency Immigration Act of 1921, affected migrant selection. The Emergency Immigration Act of 1921 severely capped the number of admittable migrants by nationality. Canadian migrants, or any migrants who resided in Canada for five consecutive years, were unrestricted by the quota and could freely migrate to the U.S. Using transcribed ship records from states bordering Canada (specifically New York, Alaska, and Washington), I compare the skills of restricted migrants to the skills of unrestricted Canadian migrants, before and after establishment of the 1921 quota. Difference-in-differences estimates indicate that the quota resulted in migrants of higher skill.     

Moving to the right place at the right time: Economic effects on migrants of the Manchuria Plague of 1910–11

How do initial arrival conditions in a host locality affect migrants’ subsequent economic welfare? Manchuria (Northeast China), which attracted millions of migrants from North China during the first half of the twentieth century, experienced a devastating pneumonic plague outbreak in 1910–11. Using data from a rural household survey in the mid-1930s, we explore how the post-plague conditions in various villages affected migrant cohorts’ long-term wealth accumulation. We find that the migrant households that moved to plague-hit villages soon after the plague ended prospered the most: they owned at least 112% more land than migrant households that either moved elsewhere or migrated to the same village before or long after the plague outbreak. Our results are robust after controlling for factors that influence the long-term wealth accumulation of migrants and are not caused by selection.     

Immigration quotas,World War I,and emigrant flows from the United States in the early 20th century

Little is known about international return migration because governments rarely track out-migrants. However, one exception occurred early in the 20th century when the United States kept records of emigrants. Using within-country changes in quota allocations in 1921, 1924, and 1929 in combination with 1908–1932 data on specific countries of intended destination of the emigrants, we estimate the effect of quotas on (1) out-migration rates, (2) emigration across skill groups, and (3) the duration of temporary migrants' stays in the U.S. Higher quota restrictions reduced emigration rates, mostly for unskilled laborers and farmers. Higher quota restrictions also increased duration of stay, as the share of migrants staying less than 5 years fell and the share staying 5 to 10 years rose. Return migration behavior was also associated with changes in previous immigrant cohort's networks and savings. Return migration rates were also low during World War I, and more significant population losses from the War in home countries discouraged return migration. Finally, out-migration of German migrants increased substantially during the 1920s.     

Lessons for Asia?: European experiences—in American perspective—in legitimizing market integration

The European Union has reached a deeper level of market integration than any other region. In many ways its success parallels the integration of national-level markets, particularly in the broadly similar continental project of the United States. This paper asks whether the EU and US cases hold any lessons for the pursuit of market integration in East Asia, and reaches two positive conclusions. First, the two Atlantic continental markets display a common content of institutions and policies that helped generate broad legitimacy for market integration. Secondly, while there is wide debate over the historical mechanisms that produced successful “embedded” market integration in the EU and the US, several of these mechanisms may be reproducible in East Asia.     

Life cycle and bequest savings A study of Japanese and U.S. households based on data from the 1984 NSFIE and the 1983 survey of consumer finances

This paper investigates whether the elderly save or dissave in light of two newly available sets of cross-section micro data, the 1983 “Survey of Consumer Finance” for the United States and the 1984 “National Survey of Family Income and Expenditure” for Japan. Contrary to dominant earlier findings we find for the United States that families after retirement dissave on average about a third of their peak wealth by the time of death, leaving the rest (mostly their homes) as bequests. For Japan, special handling is made to eliminate possible sample selection bias due to the different economic characteristics of the elderly forming independent households and those living with children. We find that the elderly belonging to both groups continue to save, and moreover, there appear to be significant signs of ongoing wealth transfer between the generations. The data in both countries also show that the elasticity of saving with respect to a life time income measure is significantly greater than unity, and more strongly so within higher age groups. J. Japan. Int. Econ., December 1988, 2(4), pp. 450–491. Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6297, and National Bureau of Economic Research.     

Wage comparison by gender and the effect of job segregation: The case of Taiwan

This paper examines the wage differential between the genders in a newly industrialized economy-Taiwan. The objective is to verify the existence and magnitude of the Taiwanese wage differential (or discrimination as some would term it) and contrast it with findings in the United States.The gender gap was estimated for the private sector and the public sector respectively. It was found that wage discrimination against females does exist. The magnitude of the “discrimination” falls within the same range as the empirical estimates for the U.S. In Taiwan, however, the wage discrimination appeared to be slightly more severe in the public sector.A measure for the discriminatory effects of the “occupational segregation” was proposed and implemented. Contrary to common belief, the “occupational segregation” was not an important factor in wage discrimination. Nor did the disparity of jobs distribution in terms of “industry” generate any significant level of wage discrimination. The main source of gender discrimination (in terms of wage rates) came from the lower returns to the “productivity” characteristics (experience, education, tenure, etc.) and not from seemingly popular hypotheses of occupational segregation (or, in more general terms, job segregation). This is in sharp contrast to previous studies.     

The roots of today's “women's jobs” and “men's jobs”: Using the index of dissimilarity to measure occupational segregation by gender

Looked at broadly, occupational distributions by sex in the United States have changed remarkably little since 1900; accordingly, researchers have found a slow rate of decline in the index of dissimilarity (a measure of occupational segregation by gender), estimates of which have so far been confined to the 20th century. This paper analyzes trends in the index over the latter part of the 19th century. The results indicate that during this period, industrialization and the associated changes in the nature of the business enterprise resulted in a rapid declinne in occupational segregation by gender, as measured by the index. This decline occurs earliest in cities experiencing early industrialization. Index estimates are presented for the United States and for selected midwestern cities, and changes in the index are decomposed into occupational mix effects and sex composition effects. Occupation-specific index changes are used to identify which occupations influenced changes in the overall index. The results indicate that the dynamic occupational shifts of the 19th century set the stage for the “men's jobs” and “women's jobs” that have been so persistently stable in the 20th century.     

Emigration from the United Kingdom to the United States,Canada and Australia/New Zealand, 1870–1913: Quantity and quality

This paper revisits the determinants of emigration from the United Kingdom to the United States, Canada and Australia/New Zealand from 1870 to 1913. In the absence of restrictive immigration policies, the flow of emigration to these destinations responded to economic shocks and trends. Emigrants to Australia and New Zealand were more skilled on average than those heading across the Atlantic, a feature that does not correspond well with skill differentials in the manner predicted by the Roy model. While assisted passages (subsidised fares) increased the volume of emigration to Australia and New Zealand they cannot account for its higher skill content.     

身份认同对流动人口家庭在流入地消费的影响

流动人口在城市的社会融合是健康城市化的重要内容，并且其本身也产生众多经济影响。文章利用2014年国家卫计委"流动人口社会融合与心理健康专题调查"的调查数据，分析流动人口不同的本地城市人身份认同对其家庭消费水平、家庭消费结构的影响。由于身份认同受到很多因素影响，具有内生性，因此我们在OLS基准回归之外，采用流动人口"本地话掌握水平"及"流出地土地面积"作为工具变量处理可能的内生性问题。我们也进行了替代变量的稳健性检验以及各种异质性检验。我们发现流动人口不同的身份认同程度对家庭消费水平、家庭消费结构有显著影响：更认同本地城市人身份的流动群体消费更高、恩格尔系数更低。同时，身份认同的消费影响在不同群体间存在一定异质性：这种效应对于年长的流动人口以及农村户籍流动人口更显著，这些异质性发现也符合预期。文章也进行了影响的可能机制检验，发现认可本地人身份的流动人口更倾向于在本地买房、长期工作生活和落户，减少在老家购房和生活的可能。研究结果对认识身份认同经济影响有一定学术价值；同时，文章的政策含义是，促进流动人口本地身份认同可以促进城市消费活力和居民生活质量。     

Patterns of industrialization and the flying geese model: the case of electronics in East Asia

We use the “flying geese” framework to study the change in the geography of comparative advantages in the electronics sector in East Asia, China and the USA. Doubts have been raised about the capacity of the “flying geese” model to interpret the most recent phases of Asian development, in particular as far as progress in the electronics sector is concerned. This paper takes issue against these negative conclusions on both theoretical and empirical grounds. On the theoretical side, the paper takes up the formulation proposed by Kaname Akamatsu, arguing that some of the critical observations raised against the model look to a distorted and simplified version of Akamatsu's original theory. Analyzing the behavior of the “revealed comparative advantage index” per products and area, it is concluded that the “flying geese model” is compatible with manifold industrial development models, increasing interdependence in an integrated area which crucially also includes the US, and that asymmetries and hierarchical order persist across the countries.     

On the unimportance of machinery

Economists and economic historians tend to use the terms capital and machinery interchangeably, even though machinery rarely consitutes one-fifth and sometimes is as little as one-tenth of a nation's reproducible tangible assets. This habit can distort the way economists think and talk about important issues. In economic history, disproportionate attention to machinery helps explain why the “Habakkuk” debate, which has now spanned several decades, has been premised on the need to rationalize empirical regularities the opposite of those in need of explanation. In manufacturing and, indeed, in the economy in the aggregate, the United States was less, not more capital intensive than Britain in 1860.     

Information technology and the Japanese economy

In this paper we compare sources of economic growth in Japan and the United States from 1975 through 2003, focusing on the role of information technology (IT). We have adjusted Japanese data to conform to US definitions in order to provide a rigorous comparison between the two economies. The adjusted data show that the share of the Japanese gross domestic product devoted to investment in computers, telecommunications equipment, and software rose sharply after 1995. The contribution of total factor productivity growth from the IT sector in Japan also increased, while the contributions of labor input and productivity growth from the non-IT sector lagged far behind the United States. Our projection of potential economic growth in Japan from for the next decade is substantially below that in the United States, mainly due to slower growth of labor input. Our projections of labor productivity growth in the two economies are much more similar. J. Japanese Int. Economies 19 (4) (2005) 460–481.     

Invoicing currency and the optimal basket peg for East Asia: Analysis using a new open economy macroeconomic model

An important characteristic of trade in Asia is that the US dollar is the dominant invoicing currency. This fact might have a consequence on the region's choice of the currency regime. To investigate this possibility, I develop a three country “new open economy macroeconomics” model that consists of East Asia, Japan, and the US. Assuming that East Asia pegs its currency to a basket of the other two's currencies, the optimal basket weights are derived numerically. It is shown that the weights under a realistic invoicing pattern are drastically different from those in the textbook case of “producer currency pricing.” J. Japanese Int. Economies 20 (4) (2006) 569–589.     

Danish emigration prior to 1914 trends and problems

Abstract

In the distinguished account of the last generation of research into emigration which Professor Thistlethwaite presented to the International Congress of History held in Stockholm in 1960, the historians of individual European nations were urged to address themselves to the study of overseas emigration in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; for, he pointed out, the topic had been painstakingly examined in the United States from the standpoint of immigration but had not yet been considered sufficiently from the point of view of the migrants’ homelands.¹     

Market supplanting versus market fostering interventions: China, East Asia and other developing countries

The paper investigates the relationship between growth and different types of government intervention by distinguishing “market supplanting” regimes from “market fostering” interventions. A lesson from the East Asian miracle was not that governments necessarily intervened less, but they intervened efficiently in a relatively transparent and flexible way that kept overall distortions in check. China's reforms can be considered a transition from a “market supplanting” regime where market signals are distorted over long periods, to “market fostering” interventions in which government acts like a gardener. Alternative measures of government interventions were used to construct two composite policy indexes. Preliminary analysis suggests that “market fostering” interventions seem to have facilitated growth in productivity, although the result is inconclusive due to data limitations. Compared with the East Asian NIEs, China still has a long way to go in reforming the role of government in the economy.     

从返乡到创业——互联网接入对农民工决策影响的实证分析

基于全国农村固定跟踪观察点2009-2013年的数据，文章实证检验了互联网接入与返乡农民工创业之间的关系，并从社会资本和人力资本两条路径探讨了互联网接入对返乡农民工创业的作用机制。研究发现：返乡农民工的创业意愿很低，返乡农民工中平均只有2.30%选择创业。互联网接入会显著促进返乡农民工创业，具体而言，互联网的接入概率每增加1个百分点，返乡农民工的创业概率提升0.036%。相对于东部地区的返乡农民工而言，互联网接入会显著促进西部的返乡农民工进行创业，而对中部和东北地区的返乡农民工则不存在显著的影响。机制分析结果显示，返乡农民工会通过互联网感知新的知识技能，提升人力资本而促进创业。文章主要结论在使用工具变量的稳健性分析中没有变化。因此，鼓励已返乡农民工创业，特别是强化技能培训以更好地发挥互联网对返乡农民工创业的促进作用，对成功实施乡村振兴战略至关重要。     

Industrial policy in Detroit: The search for a new regional development model in the home of Fordism

This article reports on the efforts of State government in Michigan in the 1980s to develop interventionist regenerative economic policies for the ageing industrial district of Detroit. This is a region which is almost synonymous with a whole production and consumption system, Fordism, now deemed by many theorists to be in decline (eg Albrechts and Swyngedouw 1989, Harvey 1989, Murray 1989). Federalism in the United States permits regional economic experiment and debate going beyond the US notion of free market privatism which has inspired many policy ideas in Britain in the 1980s (Barnekov et al, 1989). The article reports on a policy practice experiment in Michigan which was inspired by developing theories of “flexible specialization”. While short lived, the initiative has lessons for possible future regional industrial policy and the work of economic and physical planners in Britain.     

Optimal currency shares in international reserves: The impact of the euro and the prospects for the dollar

Foreign exchange reserve accumulation has risen dramatically in recent years. The introduction of the euro, greater liquidity in other major currencies, and the rising current account deficits and external debt of the United States have increased the pressure on central banks to diversify away from the US dollar. A major portfolio shift would significantly affect exchange rates and the status of the dollar as the dominant international currency. We develop a dynamic mean-variance optimization framework with portfolio rebalancing costs to estimate optimal portfolio weights among the main international currencies. Making various assumptions on expected currency returns and the variance–covariance structure, we assess how the euro has changed this allocation. We then perform simulations for the optimal currency allocations of four large emerging market countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China), adding constraints that reflect a central bank's desire to hold a sizable portion of its portfolio in the currencies of its peg, its foreign debt and its international trade. Our main results are: (i) The optimizer can match the large share of the US dollar in reserves, when the dollar is the reference (risk-free) currency. (ii) The optimum portfolios show a much lower weight for the euro than is observed. This suggests that the euro may already enjoy an enhanced role as an international reserve currency (“punching above its weight”). (iii) Growth in issuance of euro-denominated securities, a rise in euro zone trade with key emerging markets, and increased use of the euro as a currency peg, would all work towards raising the optimal euro shares, with the last factor being quantitatively the most important. J. Japanese Int. Economies 20 (4) (2006) 508–547.     

A behavioral model of work-trip mode choice in Shanghai

This paper analyzes travelers' choice behavior by using combined revealed preference/stated preference (RP/SP) survey data on work-trip mode choice in Shanghai, taking into consideration different scales across the two data sources. Several versions of a multinomial choice model are specified and estimated. The estimation results suggest that the utility function with money cost divided by income by equivalence scale be chosen as the preferred model. Based on the preferred model, values of time and sample aggregate elasticities of choice probabilities are calculated. The results show that values of “in-vehicle time” and “out-of-vehicle time” are 64 and 82% of the sample mean wage, and that in terms of elasticities, “in-vehicle time”, “out-of-vehicle time” and “money cost” are the most important attributes for bus, subway and taxi passengers, respectively. The conditional elasticities given low, middle and high income levels indicate that bicycles seem to be an inferior good for all income levels. Bus and subway transport are inferior goods for people at middle and high income levels but normal goods for those at a low income level. Taxis are a normal good only for low income levels; for middle and high income levels, they are a luxury good. The results obtained may be used for transportation policymaking in Shanghai.     

IMF conditionality: Conceptual problems and policy alternatives

This paper argues that the main issue damaging relations between developing countries and the International Monetary Fund is the latter's position that external disequilibria are always a consequence of excess aggregate domestic demand, caused by excessive credit expansion. As a result, Fund sponsored stabilization programs center on demand contraction through a credit crunch and may establish stricter domestic performance criteria than necessary to attain the balance-of-payments objectives. The author suggests that the IMF establish a two-tier conditionality system, which he calls the “hands-off” approach, with one tier composed exclusively of balance-of-payments or foreign exchange denominated variables, and the other of domestic currency denominated variables. The two-tier system would allow more flexibility in compliance assessment and might reduce substantially the number of breakdowns of Fund programs.A revised “hands-on” approach for the Fund is also suggested. The author critiques the recessive biases of the currently used financial analytical exercises and makes specific proposals to introduce “growth exercises” to establish the foreign credit requirements of a growth-oriented stabilization program and thus to introduce performance criteria for creditor countries and banks — a form of “reciprocal conditionality.”