Interpreting budget deficits in Latin America: the methods with application to Argentina

Fiscal policy in Latin American countries is too often evaluatedon the basis of raw deficit figures. This study demonstrateshow the effects of inflation on the deficit must be removedin order to derive the discretionary component of fiscal policy.Once this correction is made, fiscal policy can be evaluatedby testing the movement of the deficit with respect to alternativepolicy targets. As an illustration I employ Argentine data inorder to decompose the deficit and determine the degree to whichit is a reflection of budget endogeneity versus populism/socialconflict.     

Leadership and the aggregation of international collective action

Political entrepreneurs, or leaders, play an important rolein overcoming under-provision and coordination problems inherentin international public goods. Recent examples include the MontrealProtocol on ozone depletion and NATO peacekeeping. We demonstratethat the Prisoner's Dilemma need not be a fait accompli of internationalcollective action, owing to the various means for aggregatingcontributions (summation, best shot, better shot, weakest linkand weaker link). Using evolutionary game theory, we examine'leading by example', whereby a leader unilaterally providesan intermediate contribution, and matching behavior there beyond.It is shown to be a noncooperative means for achieving cooperativeprovision.     

A comparison of the migration process to an urban barrio and to a rural community: two case studies

The results of 2 case studies on migration in Colombia are outlined and compared. The 1st study examines inmigration to a shantytown, El Carmen, in Bogota. The 2nd study involves inmigration to a community in the eastern interior of Colombia, Granada. Migrants' motives, paths of migration, and personal characteristics are examined, suggesting hypotheses for future studies. Economic reasons were most often listed as motives for moving by both the residents of Granada and El Carmen. The type of economic motives varied greatly between the 2 communities. Reasons such as "looking for land," "establishing a business," or "to find a better life" ranked high in importance among Granada residents. These motives, along with the flight from violence, indicate that the independence provided by land and small business affords the inmigrants to Granada a certain security. Inmigrants to El Carmen were seeking employment. Only 34% of the migrants to El Carmen made 1 or more moves before settling in Bogota. 90% of the rural to rural migrants made 1 or more stops before moving to Granada. 68% of the migrants to El Carmen were born within 100 miles of Bogota while only 18% of the migrants to Granada were born within a 100 mile radius of the community. The usual pattern of the migrant to Granada was to move to a neighboring village, town, or city regardless of whether it was closer to Granada or not. The majority of inmigrants to Granada moved from distances greater than 100 miles. Over 70% of the inmigrants were born in towns and villages of more than 2000 population. If a nucleus of 10,000 inhabitants or more are considered urban, then 46% of the rural to rural migrants resided in urban areas prior to moving to Granada. This suggests that a sizable proportion of the migration to Granada is really urban to rural frontier. Studies done in Colombia and Brazil indicate that migrants to rural areas have a lower educational level than migrants to urban areas. Data from El Carmen and Granada gives similar results. 20% of the migrant residents of El Carmen have a primary school education (5 years) compared with only 7% of the inmigrants to Granada. 81% of the migrant residents of El Carmen were in their teens, 20s, and 30s at the time of migration, while only 52% of the inmigrants to Granada were in the same category. Approximately 56% of the inmigrants to Granada were in the occupational categories of farm owner operator and farm renter or laborer as compared to only approximately 40% of the inmigrants to El Carmen. The data indicate that a majority of the shantytown inmigrants come directly from small communities and travel short distances to Bogota. This is consistent with other findings of rural to urban migration. It is hypothesized that the socioeconomic level of migrants in a certain migratory stream is related to the perceived opportunity in the receiving area.