The economic impact of migration: productivity analysis for Spain and the UK

Over the past 20?years labour has become increasingly mobile and whilst employment and earnings effects in host countries have been extensively analysed, the implications for firm and industry performance have received far less attention. This paper explores the direct economic consequences of immigration on host nations?? productivity performance at a sectoral level in two very different European countries, Spain and the UK. Whilst the UK has traditionally seen substantial immigration, for Spain the phenomenon is much more recent. Our findings from a growth accounting analysis show that migration has made a negative contribution to labour productivity growth in Spain and a negative but negligible contribution in the UK. This difference is driven by a positive impact from migrant labour quality in the UK. This finding broadly holds across all sectors, but we note considerable variation in magnitudes. Labour productivity growth has a neutral contribution from migrant labour in construction and personal services in the UK, whilst in every case in Spain the effect is negative, most strongly in agriculture. Using an econometric approach to production function estimation we observe a positive long term effect on total factor productivity from migrant workers in the UK and a negative effect in Spain. Our findings suggest that either the UK is better at assimilating migrants or is more selective in terms of who is permitted to migrate.     

Does the Degree of Development Matter in the Impact of Banking Crises on International Trade?

This paper analyzes how a country's degree of economic development affects the impact of banking crises on international trade. To this end, we estimate a gravity model of trade using a sample of 139 countries over the period 1975–2012. Our results show that middle income countries are generally the most negatively affected. In contrast, financial turmoil appears to have less impact on bilateral trade flows among high income countries and, more specially, among low income nations. The level of financial development, contract enforcement, as well as the extent of the use of banking credit within international trade all help to explain our findings.     

Fractional Cointegration Analysis of Securitized Real Estate

This paper uses fractional cointegration analysis to examine whether long-run relations exist between securitized real estate returns and three sets of variables frequently used in the literature as the factors driving securitized real estate returns. That is, we examine whether such relationships are characterized by long memory (long-range dependence), short memory (short-range dependence), mean reversion (no long-run effects) or no mean reversion (no long-run equilibrium). The forecasting implications are also considered. Empirical analyses are conducted using data for the U.S., the U.K., and Australia. We find strong evidence of fractional cointegration between securitized real estate and the three sets of variables. Such relationships are mainly characterized by short memory although long memory is sometimes present. The use of fractional cointegration for forecasting purposes proves particularly useful since the start of the financial crisis.     

Investment and marketing strategies of Mexican companies in the United States: Preliminary evidence

Because of its geographic proximity to the United States and its favored position as a member of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Mexico has become an emerging player in the global marketplace, and this new position has motivated several Mexican companies to establish businesses in the United States. Attempts have been made to explain why Mexican firms have become global players, explanations that focus on several national and international factors. However, these factors omit important drivers of the process, including entry and marketing strategies. This study aims to 1) give an account of how and why Mexican companies enter the United States, and 2) identify some tendencies in the way U.S. subsidiaries of Mexican companies develop and use marketing strategies to serve U.S. markets. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Economic impact of expanded use of biologic therapy for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn’s disease in Argentina,Brazil, Colombia,and Mexico

Objectives: To estimate economic impact resulting from increased biologics use for treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and Crohn’s disease (CD) in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico.

Methods: The influence of increasing biologics use for treatment of RA during 2012–2022 and for treatment of CD during 2013–2023 was modeled from a societal perspective. The economic model incorporated current and projected medical, indirect, and drug costs and epidemiologic and economic factors. Costs associated with expanded biologics use for RA were compared with non-expanded use in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico. A similar analysis was conducted for CD in Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico.

Results: Accounting for additional costs of biologics and medical and indirect cost offsets, the model predicts that expanded use of biologics for patients with RA from 2012 to 2022 will result in cumulative net cost savings of ARS$2.351 billion in Argentina, R$9.004 billion in Brazil, COP$728.577 billion in Colombia, and MXN$18.02 billion in Mexico; expanded use of biologics for patients with CD from 2013 to 2023 will result in cumulative net cost savings for patients with CD of R$0.082 billion in Brazil, COP$502.74 billion in Colombia, and MXN$1.80 billion in Mexico. Indirect cost offsets associated with expanded biologics use were a key driver in reducing annual per-patient net costs for RA and CD.

Limitations: Future economic projections are limited by the potential variance between projected and actual future values of biologic prices, wages, medical costs, and gross national product for each country.

Conclusions: Increasing biologics use to treat RA and CD may limit cost growth over time by reducing medical and indirect costs. These findings may inform policy decisions regarding biologics use in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico.     

Worker turnover and job reallocation: the role of fixed-term contracts

This paper analyses the role of fixed-term contracts in bringingabout simultaneous worker flows and worker and job turnoverin Spain. After exploring the issue that hirings (separations)are not restricted to growing (declining) establishments andthat most firms are simultaneously engaged in hiring and separatingworkers, the extent of total worker turnover and its componentsis computed by contractual status. The findings are that workerand job turnover is higher for temporary employment and thatfixed-term contracts are used mainly for rotation purposes (althoughthey also account for the majority of job creation and destruction).     

Information revelation in a market with pairwise meetings: the one sided information case

Summary We study a market with pairwise meetings of agents and with a one sided information asymmetry regarding the state of the world, which may be low or high. We characterize the set of equilibria of the model, and study its behavior as the market becomes approximately frictionless. For any one sided information economy there is an equilibrium where trade occurs at the right price (an ex-post individually rational price). Moreover, there is an open set of economies where in all the equilibria trade occurs at the right price.We thank Douglas Gale, Jerry Green, Sergiu Hart, Andreu Mas-Colell, Eric Maskin, Thomas Sjöström, and Kathy Spier for their comments. We are grateful to a referee for correcting a mistake in an earlier draft and for providing extremely helpful suggestions. The financial support of the Fulbright — MEC program (R. Serrano) and the Sloan Foundation (O. Yosha) is acknowledged.     

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Sustainability Disclosure: Findings from a Recent SASB Study

Early research into the relationship between corporate sustainability programs and financial performance suggests a positive relationship between strong sustainability performance and a lower cost of capital. As investors increasingly incorporate sustainability information into financial decisionmaking, the importance of high‐quality sustainability disclosure is growing. Just as investors have relied on financial disclosures based on generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) to assess corporate risk, a market standard is needed to help companies disclose comparable sustainability information. To address this issue, the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) conducted a recent analysis of the current state of sustainability disclosure in annual Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings. The study reviewed the disclosures of over 700 U.S.‐and foreign‐domiciled companies, focusing on material sustainability topics as identified by SASB's industry‐specific accounting standards. The authors find large variations among different corporate sectors in the frequency and quality, as well as the focus, of their sustainability disclosures. Then, after examining in detail disclosures within the SASB Resource Transformation and Consumer Staples sectors, the authors suggest a number of possible drivers of this variation, including key sustainability and economic trends, while also presenting evidence of increasing investor interest in sustainability information. Although the authors' analysis was not intended to determine the extent to which the quality of sustainability disclosure affects investor returns, the findings provide a useful baseline for the as yet largely unexplored relationship between sustainability disclosure and corporate financial performance.     

The quantitative and qualitative evolution of the social security research

This article examines the evolution of social security research from a theoretical and empirical perspective. This is done through an extensive review and analysis of publications from the Journal of International Social Security Review published by Wiley within a 50-year period (1967–2017). It was observed that at a different period in time, the social security research focused on different national and international issues that invoked different social welfare programs and pension systems approach (public or private) to facilitate the explanation of its final socio-economic impact into different social groups in the same country or region respectively.