An empirical analysis of rural-urban migration in less developed economies

This paper presents maximum likelihood estimates on the impact of ‘Green Revolution’ technology, farm mechanization and tenurial change on rural-urban migration in less developed economies. Its principal substantive contribution lies in its emphasis on ‘push factors’ as formulated by ‘village-end’ variables.     

Return migration, human capital accumulation and the brain drain

In this paper we present a model that explains migrations as decisions that respond to where human capital can be acquired more efficiently, and where the return to human capital is highest. The basic framework is a dynamic Roy model in which a worker possesses two distinct skills that can be augmented by learning by doing. There are different implicit prices, in different countries and different rates of skill accumulation. Our analysis contributes to the literature on the selection of immigrants and return migrants by offering a richer framework that may help to accommodate selection of emigrants and return migrants that are not immediately compatible with the one-dimensional skill model. Our analysis also has implications for the debate on brain drain and brain gain. In the two skills model presented here, return migration can lead to a mitigation of the brain drain, or even the creation of a “brain gain”, where those who return bring the home country augmented local skills.     

Labor migration and risk aversion in less developed countries

"In this paper we question the pioneering work of Todaro, which states that rural-to-urban labor migration in less developed countries (LDCs) is an individual response to a higher urban expected income. We demonstrate that rural-to-urban labor migration is perfectly rational even if urban expected income is lower than rural income. We achieve this under a set of fairly stringent conditions: an individual decision-making entity, a one-period planning horizon, and global risk aversion. We obtain the result that a small chance of reaping a high reward is sufficient to trigger rural-to-urban labor migration."     

Consequences of a tax on the brain drain for unemployment and income inequality in less developed countries

Welfare implications of an income tax paid by emigrant skilled workers are analyzed in a model which assumes international capital mobility and allows for unemployed labor in the modern sector of a developing country. The tax discourages overinvestment in education and also contributes to the welfare of those remaining through the direct revenue effect. However, expected earnings of unskilled workers decline as a result of the tax, while those of non-migrant skilled workers rise. The tax may thus exacerbate domestic income inequality. In addition, modern sector employment, output, and capital stock may fall.     

Technological choice in the less developed countries: An analytic hierarchy approach

A novel and practical approach is proposed for the assessment and selection of imported technology by the less developed countries. Technological choice is conceptualized as a multiobjective, multicriterion problem wherein subjective judgments and political processes play key roles. A new planning and evaluation technique known as the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is introduced as a potent methodology for dealing with the economic, social, and political realities confronting technological change in the less developed countries.     

Stock equilibrium in flexprice markets in macromodels for less developed economies: The case of food speculation

This paper extends macroeconomic models of less developed economies with a flexprice agricultural sector and a fixprice non-agricultural sector to allow for stock equilibrium in flexprice markets as advocated by Hicks, and to thereby incorporate the empiricallu important phenomenon of food speculation. It is shown that models ignoring such features may yield incorrect insights regarding reality, and that increased speculation in foodgrains is likely to result in adverse consequences for both growth prospects and the distribution of income.     

Stock externalities and the diffusion of less polluting capital: an option approach

In this paper, the diffusion of less polluting capital in response to a stock externality is investigated. An economy is considered with identical polluted agents and a continuum of polluters who have the ability to invest in less polluting capital units. The option approach of investment decisions is used to justify environmental policies based on pollution thresholds and emission standards. The dynamics of optimal diffusion is first examined. The design of a suitable emission tax is then considered and some cases of tax inefficiency are detailed in the context of a game between symmetric polluters. The model is finally applied to greenhouse gas accumulation.     

Dynamic behavior of a simple neoclassical model with wealth and capital unequal

The paper analyzes the standard one-good neoclassical dynamic model in which wages to consumer-workers are paid in IOU's issued by producers. The wealth of consumers consists of their accumulated IOU's and the model differs from the traditional one in that it is not assumed that consumers' wealth is exactly equal to the value of the capital stock. The dynamic behavior of this model turns out to be quite different from the traditional one, the main result being that, in the absence of “excessive savings” by consumers, the golden rule will always be the unique stable steady state.     

Investment subsidies and redistributive capital income taxation in a neoclassical growth model

How do investment subsidies bear on pure redistribution when coupled with capital income taxes? In a heterogeneous agent, neoclassical growth framework it is found that on impact, with no optimizing behavior, investment subsidies are good for growth but bad for redistribution. The opposite holds for capital income taxes. But when the government acts as a Stackelberg leader vis-à-vis the private sector (the follower), the optimal feedback policy is by construction time-consistent and implies that in a long-run optimum the tax scheme does not distort accumulation. This holds regardless of social preferences. For the feedback Stackelberg equilibrium I find that (pure) redistribution can go either way and capital income taxes are nonzero in the long-run, time-consistent optimum, depending on the social weight of those who receive redistributive transfers, the distribution of pretax factor incomes, and the intertemporal elasticity of substitution. It is argued that investment subsidies may be an important indirect tool for redistribution, and may allow for the separation of “efficiency” and “equity” concerns.     

Foreign direct investment and exports: a time series approach

The impact of the accelerated internationalization of the last decade on the Austrian economy is a controversial issue. Granger's concept of casuality is used to investigate one aspect of the internationalization of production: the realtionship between foreign outward direct investment and exports using aggregate flow data from the Austrian economy. The stationarity of the time series is examined and cointegration tests for the adequacy of the multivariate time series approach are performed. The estimation results suggest significant causality of Austrian foreign outward direct investment and exports in both directions. Impulse response analysis and varience decomposition show a very slow dynamic response of both variables to exogenous shocks of the other. It furthermnore indicates the possiblity of a positive effect of exogeneously increased foreign direct investment on exports and a negative effect of export shocks on foreign direct investment; however, significant long-run effects are not established.     

Variable labour supply, specialisation-based external economies, and capital inflow

This paper examines the impact of exogenous capital inflow on prices, production, labour supply, and welfare in the presence of specialisation-based externalities. The paper utilises a simple model of an economy that produces one-final good by means of capital, labour, and a large number of varieties of an intermediate good. The intermediate good is produced by means of capital and labour. The supply of capital is exogenous but the supply of labour is endogenous. The presence of internal economies of scale in the intermediate good industry gives rise to specialisation-based external economies in the production of the final good. Perfect competition prevails in the final good industry whereas the intermediate good industry operates under Chamberlinian monopolistic competition. It is shown that exogenous capital inflow decreases labour supply and increases welfare only if the elasticity of substitution between leisure and the final good is equal to or less than unity. The paper also shows that, if trade opens up between two otherwise similar economies, a capital rich country would be a net importer of varieties of the intermediate good.     

On the determinants of long-run inflation uncertainty: Evidence from a panel of 17 developed economies

Based on a cross section of 17 advanced economies and data for the period 1975 to 2015, we examine how the interaction between monetary policy and macroeconomic conditions affects inflation uncertainty in the long-term. We construct a proxy for the unobservable inflation uncertainty based on the slowly evolving long-term variance component of inflation from a Spline-GARCH model (Engle and Rangel, 2008). We show that long-run inflation uncertainty is high if an inflation-tolerant central bank governor is in power during a period of high inflation, if the policy rate is below the one that is prescribed by the Taylor rule and during times of heightened stock and exchange rate volatility.     

International migration,economic policy and human capital accumulation: a simulation study

"This paper examines the economic policy implications of international migration and human capital accumulation within a dynamic general equilibrium model. Each country produces by means of physical and human capital of two types (skilled and unskilled labour). Along optimal growth paths in a world of diverging population growth rates immigration can only be beneficial when the free rider effect (i.e., not paying for training costs) exceeds the capital dilution effect of an increase in population growth. Under quite general conditions the optimal immigration rate is zero."