Promoting entry of high-quality workers through US immigration policy

We examine how US immigrants would be affected by applying a simple point system for admission, as Canada does. Since US immigration policy emphasizes family reunification, immigrants have lower education and earnings than natives, with unauthorized immigrants’ education below legal ones. Using American Community Survey data, and Center for Migration Studies data, which allows us to distinguish legal from unauthorized immigrants, we examine the effects of requiring immigrants to meet 2 of 3 conditions: (1) a high school or college degree, (2) being less than 40 years old and (3) working in a professional occupation, while admitting the same numbers of immigrants. This policy changes the source countries of immigrants and there are large positive effects on immigrant earnings. Immigrants’ use of government transfer programs is reduced to below natives and income inequality falls. Finally, with existing policy, immigrant earnings growth is not enough to overtake natives given immigrants’ entering earnings disadvantage. With this point system, immigrants start at a higher level and surpass natives relatively quickly.     

Interior immigration enforcement policy and the subjective well-being of US residents: evidence from secure communities

There were increased efforts to enhance interior enforcement of immigration laws in the United States in recent years. Considering that more interior immigration enforcement measures are going to be proposed in the near future, there is a need to evaluate whether such policy can achieve its objective and imparts some benefits to the population it is supposed to help. In this article, I examine the impact of one of the largest interior immigration enforcement effort – Secure Communities – on the subjective well-being of US residents. The analyses show that there is no evidence that Secure Communities statistically significantly increased the proportion of white or black non-Hispanics reporting that they were satisfied with their life. Evaluated at the mean, at 10% significance level, the results suggest that I can rule out an effect size larger than 0.5% and 1% for white and black non-Hispanics, respectively. Since only a small share of white or black non-Hispanics are foreign-born, this finding suggests that the benefit of Secure Communities to US-born individuals that are coming through an increase in their life satisfaction is not economically large.     

Constitutional moments in Eastern Europe and subjectivist political economy

This article provides epistemic foundations for traditional rational-choice political science, to explain when and how ideas matter. Operational codes, epistemic communities and the structural patterns of ideas demonstrates the constitutional moments that occur during crises, and how ideas can underpin and direct the formation of interest groups. The implications for policy reform are discussed, along with an application to the Constitutional Moments during the transition of Central and Eastern Europe.

The determinants of individual attitudes towards immigration

The paper formulates hypotheses and reports on individual attitudes towards immigration based on data for 24 countries on socioeconomic position, sociodemographic characteristics and political attitudes. The results are consistent with the predictions of factor proportions trade theory, but also suggest that a range of other economic and cultural factors influence attitudes towards immigration.     

Constitutional coordination in unstable party systems: the Brazilian constitution of 1988

Constitutional assemblies are a common feature of many democratic transitions. However, the goal of coordinating constitutional choice would seem nearly impossible when assemblies are comprised of highly fragmented and volatile political parties. Building on Knight’s bargaining model, this article argues that the main challenge to coordination in unstable party systems is the procedural disequilibrium that results from incomplete information over breakdown payoffs. The likelihood of compromise in such circumstances is a function of the ideologies that frame constitutional choice and inform coalition-building. Thus, unstable party systems are not chaotic, although they may be deeply conflict-laden. These issues are illustrated empirically via the Brazilian Constitution of 1988, which demonstrates the possibilities for a stable constitutional order emerging from a fragmented and volatile party system.

Assessment of the immigration effect and choice of development pattern for scenic areas： a case study of Wuyi Mountain, China

Mountainous regions face a series of Conflicts betWeen the natural resources conservation and the economic development, especially in protected areas, where are the home to some of the poorest people in＇the world In China, the Protected Areas Authorities （such as Protected Areas Authorities of Wuyi Mountain） transferred the mountainous people out of the protected areas. We found that it is not a good approach of immigration project, as fal economic and ecological effect is concerned. Although remote and majestic, beauty attracted many tourists, mass tourism is not a good approach to soh,e the development problem in mountainous areas because it can not provide enough opportunites to make local people live a comfortable life, and the high volume of tourists indicates that the resources, face significant threats. Because many fandscapes,are run by Private enterprises, local residents and government only get limited benefits. Alihough ecotourism principles expatiate on economic development and resource, onservation, local people income and tourists feelings, it has discordance between the theory and the praciice Therefore. the term of ＂integrated ecotourism ＂ was coined in the paper.based on the ecotourism theory, Integrated ecotourism means a broadly tourism resources and pendulum spatial pattern which will come into being with the movement of local,people and tourists from protected areas io the nearby town or city： and it also tries to solve the property right conflict of mountain land between the local people and the private enterprises according to property right theory.     

Risk preference,immigration policy and illegal immigration

The paper analyzes the effects of government policy upon illegal immigration. The model used as a vehicle for this analysis is an extension of Ethier's one-small-country model of illegal immigration to a two-country context. We distinguish between the cases of capital immobility and free capital mobility, and consider illegal immigration when there are border patrols by the government and when there are internal enforcement procedures in effect. Unlike previous researchers who have assumed risk neutrality, we examine the impacts of government policy when prospective illegal immigrants exhibit risk averse and risk loving behavior. The relaxation of the risk neutrality assumption leads to the possibility of multiple and unstable equilibria. Moreover, attitudes to risk and the probability of detection are shown to have implications for some equilibrium responses to tighter surveillance.     

U.S. immigration regulations and India's information technology industry

The export-led growth of India's information technology (IT) industry has been nothing short of phenomenal over the past half-dozen years. Other studies have provided a number of explanations for the growth. This paper proposes that a significant factor has been overlooked or understated in prior explanations. Specifically, the Indian IT industry has utilized U.S. immigration regulations for competitive advantage to accelerate its growth. The importance of this factor is estimated through quantitative data analysis at the macro and firm levels. The analysis helps to explain why India's IT industry grew while that of other developing countries, with similar human capital resources and wage rates, did not. The U.S. Congress is currently debating U.S. immigration policies and may change them in the near future. Any changes will have significant effects on the future growth pattern of the Indian IT industry. Many developing countries have recognized India's success, and policymakers in those countries are implementing strategies to replicate it. The results from this study may help those policymakers better understand a key factor of India's success in exporting IT.     

The 2015 refugee inflow and concerns over immigration

How did the large asylum-seeker inflow to Germany in 2015 affect concerns about immigration? Using individual-level panel data for the years 2012–2018 and a policy that allocates asylum-seekers to districts, I identify the effect of exposure to asylum-seekers. In line with the contact hypothesis, living in a high refugee migration district reduced concerns about immigration by 3 pp. Alternatively, a 1 pp. increase in the share of asylum-seekers in the population reduced these concerns by 3.4 pp. The effect appears larger for right-leaning respondents and is driven by districts that do not host a large reception centre. However, the overall trend indicates that after 2015 concerns about immigration increased by about 21 pp. and support for extreme right-wing parties by about 1.7 pp. These trends show considerable heterogeneity for different demographic groups.     

Risk preference,immigration policy and illegal immigration

The paper analyzes the effects of government policy upon illegal immigration. The model used as a vehicle for this analysis is an extension of Ethier's one-small-country model of illegal immigration to a two-country context. We distinguish between the cases of capital immobility and free capital mobility, and consider illegal immigration when there are border patrols by the government and when there are internal enforcement procedures in effect. Unlike previous researchers who have assumed risk neutrality, we examine the impacts of government policy when prospective illegal immigrants exhibit risk averse and risk loving behavior. The relaxation of the risk neutrality assumption leads to the possibility of multiple and unstable equilibria. Moreover, attitudes to risk and the probability of detection are shown to have implications for some equilibrium responses to tighter surveillance.     

Legislative output and the Constitutional Court in Italy

This paper considers the impact of the Constitutional Court on legislative output in Italy. Following Tsebelis’ ((2002) Veto Players: Foundations of Institutional Analysis. Princeton: Princeton University Press) veto players model and the stylised facts as regards the Italian Constitutional Court’s activity, this paper presents a multi-stage game in the spirit of Gely and Spiller ((1990). A rational choice theory of supreme court statutory decisions with applications to the state farm and grove city cases. Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 6, 263–300). In the first stage, the legislative veto players, namely the parties in government, choose whether to change or not the policy status quo by enacting new legislation. In the second stage, the Court makes a constitutional interpretation: it decides whether to alter or not the outcome of the first stage through a sentence of constitutional illegitimacy. The Court has both the power of annulling laws and a limited power of creating new legally binding norms. Moreover, in the third stage, a constitutional law voted by a parliamentary qualified majority can overturn the Court’s decisions. The model predicts that the presence of the Court lowers legislative policy change and tests this prediction with 1956–2001 annual time series data for Italy.

Capital–skill complementarity and the immigration surplus

We build a neoclassical growth model with overlapping dynasties and capital–skill complementarities to evaluate changes in immigration policy. Calibrating the model using US data, we quantify the differential effects of skilled and unskilled immigration on factor returns and on the welfare of different sectors of the population. An influx of high-skilled immigrants lowers the wages of skilled workers, raises the wages of unskilled workers, and because of the relative complementarity between capital and skilled labor, substantially raises the rate of return to native-owned capital. By contrast, an influx of unskilled immigrants produces an opposite effect on wages, and has only a negligible effect on the return to capital. Because of capital–skill complementarity, an increase in the number of skilled immigrants generates an immigration surplus—the overall welfare benefit accruing to the native population—that is approximately ten times larger than the immigration surplus generated by an identical increase in the number of unskilled immigrants. This differential welfare effect is far higher than can be accounted for by the disparity between the productivities of each type of worker.     

Electoral systems and immigration

Unexplored stylized facts on OECD countries suggest that plurality electoral systems are associated with higher openness to immigration. We propose an explanation based on a retrospective voting model where immigration hurts voters but benefits a rent-seeking policymaker who appropriates part of the income generated by immigrants. To be reappointed, the policymaker must distribute the compensation. With respect to proportional systems, plurality systems make it possible to compensate only a few decisive districts and leave after-compensation rents higher, therefore producing higher immigration. In our model, non-decisive districts receive no compensation at all under both electoral systems, providing a rationale for widespread anti-immigration attitudes. Notably, our results also help to explain why governments often seem more pro-immigration than do voters. Finally, our model predicts that opposition to immigration is more geographically dispersed in plurality systems. Basic evidence supports this prediction.     

宪政经济学与中国经济改革的宪政问题

宪政经济学是现代西方经济学研究的重要分支，是经济学回归为“政治的经济学”的重要研究成果。它是对约束经济行为者和政治行为者的选择与活动的不同法津——制度——宪法规则的运转性质做出相关解释的经济学。而按照马克思主义经济学的理论。经济决定政治，经济发展从来也不能脱离制度的约束。从这个意义上讲，中国的经济改革本身并不是一个单纯的经济问题，更是一个以经济为核心、以宪法制度为框架约束的公共选择过程，理应以宪政的思维去理解和推进这项改革。     

中国上市公司会计政策选择研究

中国上市公司会计政策选择存在很多问题,主要有：选择权的失衡及存在机会主义倾向选择的随意性大且形式单一,未实现整体利益的最大化。由于诸多因素的存在,会计政策的选择行为是必然存在的,如果不采取措施加以防范,上市公司利用会计政策进行盈余管理在所难免。对于会计政策,关键是防止过度滥用,尽量减少诱发滥用的动机,规范其选择行为。     

Constitutional Interpretation: Burke and Buchanan and their 18th Century Intellectual Roots

There is a respectable tradition of Burkean constitutional interpretation in legal scholarship whereas Edmund Burke is a relatively neglected figure in constitutional political economy. A comparison of the constitutional interpretations of constitutional political economy and Burkean legal scholarship provides a potentially fruitful outcome for both. This is particularly so given the 18th century intellectual roots of each. An examination of the Burkean tradition demonstrates why it is methodologically inductive, evolutionary and pessimistic, compared to the deductive, individualistic and optimistic approach of the Smithian tradition of constitutional political economy. Interestingly, these sharp distinctions in method produce similar results.

Taxonomy: racism versus fiscal conservatism in voting on segregationist provisions in Alabama’s constitution

On Election Day 2004, a razor-thin majority of Alabama’s voters rejected a proposed amendment to remove overtly segregationist language from the state constitution. Opponents had contended that approval would have opened the legislative door to significantly higher taxes. We employ the results from two earlier special elections to analyze the outcome. In 2000, voters supported repealing a constitutional provision prohibiting interracial marriages. Three years later, Alabamians were asked to reveal their preferences with respect to additional taxation. The evidence suggests that opposition to higher taxes rather than bigotry was decisive in the rejection of Amendment 2 in 2004.

Illegal aliens,unemployment and immigration policy

"This paper develops a simple two-country model of illegal immigration in an attempt to examine the interaction among variables such as the stock of migrant labor, the unemployment rates of the two economies, and the rate of spending by the host country on the enforcement of its immigration restrictions. The focus of the analysis is on the dynamics of immigration policy and on its role in determining the nature of the mechanism by which disturbances to the labor market of one country are transmitted to that of the other in the short run and in the long run."     

Tax smoothing with immigration in an overlapping generations economy

Immigration policy in an overlapping generations economy is politically determined in response to government spending shocks, where the government finances its spending with proportional income taxes and is subject to a balanced budget. The young cohort is always the majority and dictates policy. The equilibrium Markovian strategy allows immigrants when the spending shock is above some threshold and this implies a particular form of tax smoothing.