Child labor,urban proximity,and household composition

Using detailed survey data from Nepal, this paper examines the determinants of child labor with a special emphasis on urban proximity. We find that children residing in or near urban centers attend school more and work less in total but are more likely to be involved in wage work or in a small business. The larger the urban center, the stronger the effect is. Urban proximity is found to reduce the workload of children and improve school attendance up to 3 h of travel time from the city. In areas of commercialized agriculture located 3 to 7 h from the city, children do more farm work. Urban proximity effects are accounted for by a combination of local labor supply and demand conditions, most notably the local importance of agriculture, the education level of the parents, and the local wage rate. Child servants, which represent a small proportion of all children, work much harder than other children and appear particularly at risk.     

The Future of U.S. Infrastructure: Proposals for Progress

America's transportation, energy, and water systems are in desperate need of maintenance, and new development must be encouraged to secure the country's economic future. This article proposes several far‐reaching but concrete and immediate steps to address these challenges: First, the U.S. must have a clear, comprehensive, long‐term plan for the development and maintenance of the country's infrastructure, one that will raise public awareness and promote new approaches. It should facilitate the development of such a vision at every level of government, with the aim of building consensus and encouraging local solutions. Next, the public sector should build an internal capability for evaluating projects, a centralized clearinghouse of best practices and educational resources to provide regional and local authorities with the information and expertise they need to enlist private investment in appropriate and productive ways. This is particularly true for Public‐Private Partnerships, which are mistakenly viewed by many as a panacea. Without careful scrutiny of such transactions, many will fail to realize the benefits that well‐designed PPPs are expected to deliver. Finally, despite best intentions, little progress has been made on the political front in addressing the crisis. A National Infrastructure Commission charged with assessing the country's needs and resources, identifying best practices, and making long‐term recommendations may be the catalyst needed to get past the gridlock, a driving force that can rise above the politics, draw from the best ideas, and provide a long‐term vision and pathway. To be most effective, the Commission should recruit a broad and nonpartisan membership, lever‐age the work of existing organizations, and provide a united front.     

Political change and informality

This paper examines informality during the political and economic turmoil that accompanied the Arab Spring revolution in Egypt. The paper focuses on unprotected employment and the extent to which it changed by educational level immediately after the January Uprising of 2011. We find that over time and particularly after the revolution, informal employment has increased for both high‐ and low‐educated workers, albeit through different paths: high‐educated workers were more likely to be stuck in informality, while low‐educated formal workers were more likely to lose their contracts. The increase in informal employment in the wake of the Arab Spring is more pronounced for the high‐educated. The results suggest a high level of rigidity in the Egyptian labour market, even in the wake of the Arab Spring.     

Immigrants’ Wage Growth and Selective Out‐Migration

This paper examines immigrant wage growth taking selective out‐migration into account using administrative data from the Netherlands. Addressing a limitation in the previous literature, we address the potential endogeneity of immigrants’ labour supply and out‐migration decisions on their earning profiles using a correlated competing risk model. We distinguish between labour and family migrants, given their different labour market and out‐migration behaviours. Our findings show that accounting for selective labour supply is as important as accounting for selective out‐migration. Controlling only for out‐migration selectivity would underestimate immigrants’ wage growth, whilst controlling only for labour market selectivity would overestimate their wage growth. This shows that different selections are important for different types of migrants.     

Welfare Magnet Hypothesis,Fiscal Burden,and Immigration Skill Selectivity

In this paper, we investigate the effect of welfare state generosity on the difference between skilled and unskilled migration rates, and the role of mobility restriction in shaping this effect. We utilize the free labor movement within the European Union plus Norway and Switzerland (EUR) and the restricted movement from outside the EUR in order to compare the free‐migration regime to the restricted‐migration regime. We find strong support for the magnet hypothesis under the free‐migration regime, and the fiscal burden hypothesis under the restricted‐migration regime, even after controlling for differences in educational quality and returns to skills in source and host countries.     

Overseas Work Experience, Savings and Entrepreneurship Amongst Return Migrants to LDCs

This paper contributes to a small but rapidly growing literature concerned with the potentially substantial implications of international migration for economic development in LDCs. We study the linkages between overseas employment, savings and entrepreneurial activity on return. In an econometric model of the probability of entrepreneurial activity, we find evidence supporting the hypotheses that both overseas savings, and the duration of stay overseas increase the probability of becoming an entrepreneur amongst literate returnees to Egypt. Amongst illiterate returnees, overseas savings alone increase the probability of becoming an entrepreneur. The results for literates suggest that skill acquisition overseas may matter more substantially than overcoming a savings constraint in explaining how overseas opportunities influence entrepreneurship on return. For illiterates, who usually accept menial positions overseas that offer little opportunity for learning, the opposite obtains.     

Return migration and the transfer of gender norms: Evidence from the Middle East

Does international return migration transfer gender norms? Focusing on Jordan, an Arab country where gender inequality and emigration rates are high, this paper exploits unique data in which detailed information on female empowerment allows us to construct several measures of social norms in Jordan on the role of women, female freedom of mobility, and female decision-making power. Controlling for both emigration and return migration selections, we find that women with a returnee family member are more likely to bear traditional gender norms than women in households with no migration experience. Further analysis shows that results are driven by returnees from more conservative Arab countries, suggesting a transfer of conservative norms from destinations with highly traditional gender roles. We also show the implications of our results beyond perceptions for several economic and development outcomes, such as female labour force participation, education and fertility.     

Overseas Employment and Remittances to a Dual Economy

Overseas employment has become more commonplace, and remittances have increased in similar proportions. For poor countries, remittances often substantially influence domestic expenditures and real exchange rates. We study overseas employment, remittances and domestic underemployment in a simple general equilibrium model with a non-traded good and minimum wage. The influence of population growth, rural productivity, and family altruism are examined. If remittances per migrant exceed domestic productivity then multiple equilibria may occur exhibiting high or low overseas employment. We discuss how the equilibrium with highest overseas employment conditionally Pareto dominates the other equilibria, and analyse policy co-ordination.     

The Urban Geography of Low‐income Housing: Cairo (1947–96) Exemplifies a Model

No one has documented the changing geography of low‐income settlements in any city in the developing world over the entire postwar period. The most plausible model of this changing geography, first outlined by John F.C. Turner, indicates the existence of a dual concentration of the poor: in central slums and in informal settlements at the periphery. This dual pattern is associated, respectively, with the filtering‐down of older housing and with owner‐construction of new dwellings, sometimes on illegally‐occupied land. Some writers have suggested that central slums deteriorate, while fringe settlements may be improved over time, thereby distinguishing slums of despair from those of hope. Analysis of the Egyptian census from 1947 to 1996 shows that this suggestion is borne out by the postwar experience of Cairo. Evidence on literacy indicates that central and fringe areas have both contained a high proportion of low‐income households, but that over half a century the relative status of the central areas has slowly declined. Although it has helped to shape the experience of millions, this long‐term trend has not been obvious to close observers of the local scene. Similar historical surveys should be undertaken of low‐income settlements in other cities in the developing world. Personne n’a étudié la géographie évolutive des logements à faibles revenus dans quelque ville que ce soit du monde en développement durant tout l’après‐guerre. Le modèle le plus plausible de ce changement, esquisséà l’origine par John F.C. Turner, définit l’existence de deux concentrations de pauvres: dans les taudis du centre et dans des implantations informelles à la périphérie. Ce modèle dual est lié respectivement à un déclassement de l’habitat ancien et à la construction de nouvelles habitations par les propriétaires, parfois sur un terrain occupé illégalement. D’après certains auteurs, les quartiers centraux des pauvres se détériorent tandis que les installations périphériques sont susceptibles de s’améliorer avec le temps, établissant ainsi une distinction entre les taudis du désespoir et ceux de l’espoir. Une analyse du recensement égyptien de 1947 à 1996 confirme cette idée au vu de l’expérience du Caire depuis la guerre. Des données sur l’alphabétisation montrent que les zones centrales et périphériques ont abrité une forte proportion de ménages à faible revenu mais que, en un demi‐siècle, la condition sociale des quartiers du centre a connu un relatif déclin. Même si elle a influé sur l’expérience de millions de gens, cette tendance à long terme a échappéà des observateurs directs de la scène locale. Il conviendrait donc d’entreprendre des études historiques similaires dans les quartiers à bas revenus d’autres grandes villes du monde en développement.