Competition as a track for preventing illegal immigration

Rich countries often face sizeable illegal migration. This paper suggests that these countries would use the financial aid which they give to the source countries as an instrument to prevent illegal immigration. The core of this policy is to allow the source countries to compete for the pre-determined aid, which would be distributed according to the cross-proportion of the apprehended illegal aliens. Moreover, we show that it may be beneficial for the rich country to split the source countries into competing pairs rather than allowing all of them to compete jointly. The rich country has basically two policy means: funds allocated to strengthening its border control; and the foreign aid given to the source countries. The multi-country general equilibrium model presented shows how the rich country, by choosing an appropriate mix of these two policy means, can minimize the number of illegal immigrants subject to its budget constrain.Received: 15 August 2002, Accepted: 21 January 2004, JEL Classification: F22Nava Kahana, Tikva Lecker: The authors are grateful to two anonymous referees for their valuable comments.     

Migrants' performance in the labor market: The later the better

The idea that migrants' performance in the labor market might be contingent upon the nature of the externalities generated by other migrants has escaped attention. When migrants from a given country of origin first arrive at a given country of destination, the capacity of employers to decipher and interpret such home information as the migrants' level of education and skill achievements is limited. But what applies to the initial wave of migrants differs from what applies to the second and higher order waves. Higher order waves of migrants arrive when employers in the receiving country already have certain experience with first-wave migrants. This paper develops a model which shows that, after migration, the probability of a later wave of migrants being mobile in a labor market is lower than that of a former wave migrant, i.e., from the migrants' point of view—the later the better.     

Foreign aid as a discipline on illegal immigration

This paper deals with a sanctions policy toward reducing illegal immigration. Using a single-period game, it shows that by imposing a penalty on each apprehended illegal alien, the host country will increase the motivation of the source country to expend money for preventing illegal immigration. It is also shown that although the sanctions are allowed to go only one way, by increasing the efficiency of catching illegal aliens, both parties will be motivated to expend money for restraining illegal immigration. The author thanks Gideon Hollander, Eliakim Katz, and an anonymous referee for their valuable help. All errors are the author's responsibility.     

Labour Mobility of Minorities Versus Majorities–Theory and Application

Most American newspapers are published in cities in which no other daily newspaper is published. While these newspapers are considered city monopolists, this study examines the effect of readership competition across cities. By using a sample of 386 newspaper firms that publish in cities in which no other daily newspaper is published, this paper demonstrates that these ‘monopoly’ newspapers face significant readership competition from newspapers published in other cities.     

Measuring consumer's surplus in the factor market

Conclusion Although it is not possible to directly measure the input producers' profit by examining the market for the final product, up till now little attention has been paid to measuring consumer's surplus in the factor market. The authors have demonstrated a method for doing so which will enable measurement of consumers' surplus and producers' (of the final product and the input) profits on one plane. The factor market may then serve as a better base for the analysis of welfare problems.     

STUDY-GRANT SCHEMES AND EFFORT: AN ECONOMIC MODEL

This paper extends Becker's basic model on investment in human capital by introducing effort as a decision variable. Based on this extended model we consider the efficiency of two popular study-grant schemes and propose a third which unequivocally increases the student's effort and may thereby resolve the moral hazard problem created by the student's self-interested behaviour. In addition, some policy issues concerning conflicts between the students' and the policy-maker's objectives are discussed.