Controlling Illegal Immigration: Border Control vs. Domestic Enforcement

This paper presents a two-country general equilibrium model where international mobility of labor is prohibited. Illegal immigration nevertheless occurs. The probability of success at illegal immigration depends on resources allocated to border control and domestic enforcements. We examine the effects of switching resources form border control to domestic enforcement on illegal immigration and on welfare levels. We characterize the allocation of resources between the two methods of immigration control, that minimizes illegal immigration, and find that, starting from this allocation, moving resources from border control to domestic enforcement is unambiguously welfare improving for the destination country.

     

Logic of Aid in an Intertemporal Setting

The paper studies the welfare implications of temporary foreign aid in the context of a simple two‐country model of trade. In addition to its usual effects, a transfer of income in one period is assumed to influence the preferences of the recipient country in the following period. The implied changes in the terms of trade over the two periods are consistent with a number of possible outcomes with respect to the intertemporal welfare of the donor, the recipient, and the world as a whole. Particular attention is devoted to the conditions for strict Pareto improvement and the circumstances under which temporary aid transactions are likely to occur.     

Do Market‐Supporting Institutional Characteristics Explain Firm Performance? Evidence from Emerging Markets

The importance of market‐supporting institutions and their impact on business investment and economic growth has gained the attention of researchers and practitioners alike. In this study, we extend this research by capturing the impact of the quality of regulative institutional characteristics on firm performance in an emerging market context. We use a sample of 26,493 emerging market firms from 91 countries over the years 2003 to 2010 and test for the relationship between government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law and control of corruption, and firm performance. Results indicate that governmental effectiveness and regulatory quality impact performance outcomes positively, while rule of law impacts performance negatively. These findings provide important insights and encourage managers and public policymakers to be cognizant of the impact of these factors and adapt accordingly. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

India-focused publications in leading international business journals

Despite an increase in the number of India-focused articles appearing in leading international business journals, there has not been any attempt to conduct systematic reviews that can inform academicians and practitioners about research that has accumulated over the years and identify areas that may be worthwhile to pursue in the future. This article attempts to fill this gap by providing an overview of all publications focusing on the Indian context that appeared in seven leading international business journals between 1991 and 2008. Findings suggest that 74 publications involving 180 authors affiliated to 112 academic and six non-academic institutions from nine international locations contributed to the research by examining a wide variety of international business topics. Findings also reveal that authors affiliated to US-based institutions published more than others and the majority of top-cited publications appeared after 1995. Contributions of various authors and institutions are ranked and summaries of publication types, research methodologies, examined topics, and citations received by different articles are provided. This article concludes by suggesting avenues of future research.     

Human capital, inequality, endogenous growth and educational subsidy: A theoretical analysis

This paper develops an endogenous growth model with dualism in human capital accumulation of two types of individuals. The government imposes a proportional income tax on rich individuals and uses the tax revenue to finance the educational subsidy given to poor individuals. We find out the properties of the optimal tax financed educational subsidy policy in the semi-stationary equilibrium of the model using the technique of Stackelberg differential game.     

A weak bargaining set for contract choice problems

In this paper, we consider the problem of choosing a set of multi-party contracts, where each coalition of agents has a non-empty finite set of feasible contracts to choose from. We call such problems, contract choice problems. The main result in this paper states that every contract choice problem has a non-empty weak bargaining set. The need for such a solution concept which is considerably weaker than the core arises, since it is well-known that even for very simple contract choice problems, the core may be empty. We also show by means of an example that an analog of the bargaining set due to Mas-Colell [Mas-Colell, A., 1989. An equivalence theorem for a bargaining set. Journal of Mathematical Economics 18, 129–139], as well as the natural analog of the bargaining set due to Aumann and Mashler [Aumann, R., Maschler, M., 1964. The bargaining set for cooperative games. In: Dresher, M., Shapley, L., Tucker, A. (Eds.), Advances in Game Theory. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ] may be empty for contract choice problems.     

Gender Bias in Education: the Role of Inter-household Externality, Dowry and other Social Institutions

We analyze gender bias in school enrollment by developing a two‐period model where women become part of extended families of their in‐laws. Each family decides how many sons and daughters are sent to school and thus become skilled. Gender bias occurs due to failure of the families to internalize inter‐household externalities. “Groom‐specific” dowry worsens the situation. Under “bride‐specific” dowry, bias exists if and only if the skill premium in the labor market is bigger than that in the marriage market. A specific discriminatory “food‐for‐education” policy is shown to reduce bias, but increase total enrollment.     

Health insurance coverage during the COVID-19 pandemic: The role of Medicaid expansion

Using data from the US Census Bureau's Household Pulse Survey, we analyzed the likelihood of loss of health insurance and enrollment into new health coverage during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Loss of employment was associated with a significant increase in the likelihood of loss of health insurance and, specifically, an increase in the likelihood of employer-sponsored health insurance. However, individuals in Medicaid expansion states experienced a lower likelihood of loss of health insurance compared with individuals in nonexpansion states. At the same time, there was a statistically significant increase in Medicaid enrollment in expansion states, by 3.2 percentage points. Reemployment or acquiring employment was associated with a gain in health insurance coverage. During an economic downturn, eligibility, and coverage gaps leave many without affordable coverage options, and the pandemic will likely bring renewed attention to gaps in Medicaid coverage in nonexpansion states.