Immigration,remittances and business cycles

Using data on border enforcement and macroeconomic indicators from the U.S. and Mexico, we estimate a two-country business cycle model of labor migration and remittances. The model matches the cyclical dynamics of unskilled migration, and documents the insurance role of remittances in consumption smoothing. Over the cycle, immigration increases with the expected stream of future wage gains, but it is dampened by a sunk emigration cost. Migration barriers slow the adjustment of the stock of immigrant labor, enhancing the volatility of unskilled wages and remittances. Changes in border enforcement have asymmetric welfare implications for the skilled and unskilled households.     

Profile of earners and remittances in Mexico: a relative deprivation approach

This research analyzes the individual qualities and microeconomic profiles from mexican workers in Mexico, which under relative deprivation conditions, take the choice to leave the country as an alternative way to improve their life expectations. It is found that mexican assistance programs encompass heterogeneous results and thus, are not a generalized signal of improvement for the families. Using a Multinomial Logit specification we found that public assistance programs reinforce relative deprivation of non-migrants families on those who have relatives who migrated. Human capital attributes present a direct relation with the process of migration not only for traditional exporting labor regions, but also for the north-border of the country. The south supports the relative deprivation hypothesis meanwhile, is not the case for the USA-mexican border States.     

加强系统稳定运行 保障跨境汇款安全快捷——专访Russlavbank银行副总裁Igor Efremov

随着全球一体化进程的不断加快,越来越多的移民及在国外务工的人员发生跨境汇款交易,跨境支付的交易量也在不断攀升。世界银行将外劳汇款定义为“小额个人跨境支付”。据SWIFT（环球银行金翮电信协会）估计,每年全球超过2亿的移民发生的跨境支付高达10亿至15亿宗,行业收入超过150亿美元。不少金融机构将目光转向小额个人跨境支付市场。     

Human resources in developing countries

A key futures issue is the ability of developing countries to meet the increasing demand for qualified people with the skills necessary to use the emerging and increasingly sophisticated new technologies. Following a review of IT in higher education, data are presented on human resources in the developing countries, and the role of international programmes in reinforcing such resources is examined.     

Private credit in 129 countries

We investigate cross-country determinants of private credit, using new data on legal creditor rights and private and public credit registries in 129 countries. Both creditor protection through the legal system and information-sharing institutions are associated with higher ratios of private credit to gross domestic product, but the former is relatively more important in the richer countries. An analysis of legal reforms shows that credit rises after improvements in creditor rights and in information sharing. Creditor rights are remarkably stable over time, contrary to the hypothesis that legal rules are converging. Finally, legal origins are an important determinant of both creditor rights and information-sharing institutions. The analysis suggests that public credit registries, which are primarily a feature of French civil law countries, benefit private credit markets in developing countries.     

Bank efficiency in emerging Asian countries

The paper examines the relationships between market concentration, bank competition and X-efficiency in banking across six emerging Asian countries—Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam—over the period 2005–12. Market concentration has a positive effect on X-efficiency, whereas competition has a negative effect on X-efficiency. Moreover, bank size and gross domestic product growth have positive influences on X-efficiency whereas liquidity risk is negatively related to X-efficiency. In addition, the study has important policy implications for governments and banks with respect to increasing X-efficiency of banking.     

Community health care in developing countries

Health care systems in many developing countries have shared characteristics. Government expenditures in poor countries are low for health care. The majority of people cannot easily reach a modern health facility. Most spending is for high-cost curative medicine, e.g., hospitals. Programs are often inefficient in their use of funds. The tragedy of disease in developing countreis is that many of the most serious problems are either preventable or curable by simple, inexpensive, safe methods. About 16 million children under age 5 died in 1979 in developing countries; 5 million of these deaths could have been prevented by immunization against measles, polio, tetanus, diphtheria, whooping cough, and typhoid. Many countries are establishing community-level health care facilities that use community health workers instead of doctors. A 3-tiered program is being adopted in some areas: the community health center, the rural or urban polyclinic, and the referral hospital. The community health center seeks to provide two-thirds of the needed services, including supervision of pregnancy, midwifery, care of new-born children, treatment of endemic diseases, and emergency care for injuries. Early experience has taught that it is more important for the community health worker to have practical experience and the respect of the people he serves than formal education. Improvements in nutrition, hygiene, and sanitation are needed to reach the full health potential of most communities.     

Current account adjustment in industrial countries

This paper examines the dynamics of current account adjustment among industrial countries. The purpose is to evaluate whether there is a threshold level of a current account deficit at which it becomes unsustainable and whether it is possible to characterize episodes of adjustment. We identify 25 episodes in which there was a sustained improvement in the current account following a large deficit between 1980 and 1997. We find that a typical current account reversal begins when the current account deficit is about 5% of GDP. However, we also find considerable cross-country variation in the reversal threshold, consistent with a stock-adjustment model of current account sustainability. Reversals are associated with slowing income growth and a 10–20% real exchange rate depreciation. Real export growth, declining investment, and an eventual leveling off in the budget deficit–GDP ratio are also likely to be part of the adjustment. These results imply that current account reversals in industrialized countries are related to the business cycle.     

Recent growth trends in developing countries

The unprecedented economic conditions of the mid-1970s have created problems with economic development for all countries of the world. Recent economic growth trends in the following main groups of developing countries are reviewed: 1) low-income countries; 2) lower middle-income countries; 3) intermediate middle-income countries; 4) upper middle-come countries; and 5) balance of payments deficit oil exporting countries. Economic indicators for each group of countries are tabulated. The tables show that the developing countries have continued domestic economic growth at only moderately slower rates during the years since 1973. They have been helped by foreign aid or private-source borrowing. As a group, they have, in fact, helped to keep the world economy from plunging deeper into recession and to prevent world trade from contracting more than it actually did already in 1974 and 1975. The performance of these developing economies during these difficult years contributes to continued optimism regarding their future prospects.     

Corporate tax revenues in OECD countries

This paper studies variation among OECD countries in the size of corporate income tax revenues relative to GDP over the time period 1979–2002. A decomposition explains such variation as a function of the statutory tax rate, the breadth of the tax base, corporate profitability, and the share of the corporate sector in GDP. Empirical results indicate a parabolic relationship between tax rates and revenues, implying a revenue-maximizing corporate income tax rate of 33% for the whole sample. This revenue-maximizing rate is found to decrease as economies are smaller and more integrated with the world economy. JEL Classification H25, H87     

Women in the workplace in developing countries

The increased participation of women in economic activities of developing countries has been neglected, although they often work longer hours than men. In Africa, Asia, and the Pacific women average 12-13 hours more a week than men. They are often heads of households as male partners become ill, migrate, or die. The work is mostly in the household with other subsistence activities that statistics do not count. The UN Statistical Office estimated that the percentage of economically active women increased between 1970 and 1990 in the whole world except for sub-Saharan Africa. Yet the gap between female and male employment in the developing world stays wide because of fewer educational opportunities and social restrictions affecting women. 1/2 of the 70% of 830 million economically active women living in developing countries are in Asia. 3 of 4 women aged over 25 in Asia and Africa are illiterate. In Latin America and the Caribbean less than 25% of women are illiterate. Female illiteracy reaches over 75% in northern Africa and western Asia, almost 75% in sub-Saharan Africa, under 50% in eastern and southeastern Asia, and 75% in southern Asia. There is a wide gap between urban and rural illiteracy of women aged 15-24. In Africa over 40% of urban women were illiterate vs. nearly 80% of rural women in 1980. Enrollment in secondary schools in 1985 indicated that while in developed countries about equal number of girls were enrolled per 100 boys, in northern Africa only 70 girls, in sub-Saharan Africa only 60 girls, in eastern Asia 90 girls, and in southern Asia only about 40 girls were enrolled. In Africa under 20% of women vs. 80% of men in northern Africa, were active in the official economy, while in sub-Saharan Africa 40% of women vs. 90% of men, in Latin America nearly 40% of women vs. 80% of men, and in southern Asia in a little over 20% of women vs. over 80% of men.     

Distribution of parallel exchange rates in African countries

This paper investigates the distribution of parallel exchange rates in African countries using exploratory data analysis techniques and model fitting. Stable laws are fitted to empirical distributions using the maximum likelihood estimation method. Empirical evidence supports the stable hypothesis these distributions are positively skewed and have tails that are much heavier than Gaussian counterparts. The stable hypothesis is further supported by the “converging variance test,” which suggests that these distributions have infinite variance.     

Convergence in banking efficiency across European countries

Our paper aims to check whether financial integration has taken place on the EU banking markets, by investigating the convergence in banking efficiency for European countries between 1994 and 2005. We provide evidence of cross-country differences in cost efficiency and of an improvement in cost efficiency for all EU countries. β and σ convergence tests for panel data show a process in convergence in cost efficiency between EU countries. Robustness checks with alternative specifications confirm these findings. These results support the view that financial integration has taken place on the EU banking markets in the recent years.     

The demand for money in EEC countries

This paper examines the demand for money in the EEC countries and is focussed on five issues. First it starts form a common economic framework, which allows for shifts from M 2 to non-money assets and vice versa. Second, special attention is given to the dynamic structure of the statistical model in order to obtain meaningful conclusions on, e.g., the speed of adjustment of actual to optimal money holdings. Third, the study is entirely based on a uniform set of quarterly data for the eight countries concerned. Fourth, the paper presents a careful examination of the residuals and, finally, analyses the predictive behaviour of the estimated models. For all countries we found long-run income elasticities greater than unity and interest rate elasticities clustered around -0.20. The impact of inflation and the business cycle variable appeared to be significant in the majority of countries considered.     

"Population policy in developed countries."

Bernard Berelson's book, "Population Policy in Developed Countries," provides a report on population policy in the developed world as of the early 1970s, covering countries with 20 million population or over, and 11 countries of special interest. There are chapters by national experts from 25 countries. A developed country is defined as industrialized, healthier, better educated, better off, more modernized, and distinguished by low fertility. This does not mean that population growth in these countries has yet fallen to zero or lower, but in 7 or 8 countries, population is expected to stabilize in a decade or so unless recent fertility trends reverse themselves or are offset by immigration. The conclusions drawn from the 25 country reports are summarized, and highlights of the demographic situation and policies in 12 of the countries are presented, Berelson is cautious in predicting the future shape of population policy in the developed world. There have been too many policy changes in the past to be confident of the future. He feels, however, that more and more people are likely to accept the goal of replacement, up to replacement in some countries and down to replacement in others.