Suchergebnisse

This paper establishes a political support model of immigration reforms. The analysis highlights the distinction between border enforcement and employer sanction measures in that the former can be more aptly characterized as an income transfer from employer to native labor interests, whereas the latter generates deadweight losses that are borne entirely by producers. We show that while amnesty may appear to run contrary to the original intent of the immigration reform, it may nevertheless facilitate rent capture by the politician by "wiping the slate clean" and reducing the deadweight loss of employer sanction measures.

In the presence of output or price uncertainty, the Heckscher‐Ohlin‐Samuelson (H‐O‐S) model with incomplete risk markets has been shown to exhibit a wide range of perverse comparative‐statics responses which contradict the predictions à la Stolper‐Samuelson and Rybczynski, and opens up the possibility of perverse price‐output responses. This paper revisits the question raised by Neary (1978) and examines the dynamic stability properties of an H‐O‐S model under uncertainty in relation to the conditions under which these perverse responses emerge. The findings suggest that, once the risk attitudes of the representative entrepreneur is appropriately accounted for in the specification of value factor intensities, dynamic stability with respect to a Marshallian adjustment process is necessary and sufficient for the normality of all of the standard comparative‐statics responses except for the Rybczynski result. The basic analytics are then applied to various existing setups of the H‐O‐S model under uncertainty. In each case, the applicability of the stability condition in precluding comparative‐static responses that violate standard predictions is examined.

For decades, rapid urban expansion has led to concerns over the loss of cultivated land in rural China. This contrasts sharply with another salient feature of the Chinese land policy reform landscape that has gone on largely unnoticed - the addition of newly cultivated land in China through land development has consistently exceeded land conversion. In a model featuring fiscal decentralization, local governments as custodians of land use and development, along with a land development allowance policy instituted in 1998, we show that a land development allowance policy can harness the forces of urban expansion to encourage agricultural land development.

The dominant perspective in discussions of labour and environmental standards and globalization is that of North–South competition and its impact on Northern standards. This paper presents an alternative perspective, that of South–South competition to export to the North and its impact on Southern standards. It develops a simple model of Southern competition, and demonstrates that whether a Southern race to the bottom is possible depends intricately on the Northern demand curve, the size of large exporters relative to each other and the relative size of the competitive fringe of small exporters. The possibility that Northern trade protectionism may undermine Southern standards is also examined.

In the context of non‐diversifiable and sector‐specific risks in labour markets, we show that the resulting factor market distortion – attributable to an endogenous intersectoral wage differential – can provide a possible rationale that explains why larger wage dispersion prevails in developing nations. We also demonstrate how endogenous wage distortions spill over to capital markets, with capital‐poor economies offering lower rates of returns. In addition, we show that inequality in the distribution of wealth further deviates factor allocation away from first‐best and impairs intersectoral mobility of the poor.Ce mémoire montre que la distorsion dans le marché des facteurs qui résulte de risques non diversifiables et spécifiques à certains secteurs (et qui se traduit par un différentiel de salaire endogène entre secteurs) peut expliquer pourquoi on observe une dispersion plus grande des salaires dans les pays en voie de développement.On montre aussi comment des distorsions endogènes de salaires débordent vers les marchés de capitaux,ce qui fait que les pays pauvres en capital ont des rendements plus faibles.De plus, on montre que l'inégalité dans la distribution de la richesse contribue à faire dévier l'allocation des ressources de son optimum de premier ordre et nuit à la mobilité inter‐sectorielle des pauvres.

Despite recent multilateral efforts to single out child labor in debt bondage as one of the worst forms of child labor, several important questions have yet to be addressed: How pervasive is the phenomenon? Are there systematic correlations between the incidence of children in debt bondage and the economic, legislative, and financial development indicators of the economy? How does an understanding of these correlates affect the way national and international policy measures aimed at targeting this form of child labor are perceived? This article addresses each of these questions. The empirical findings suggest strong correlation between the likelihood of the incidence of child labor in debt bondage with the stage of development of an economy, the stage of financial development, and enforcement of core labor rights. Building on this evidence, the article presents a theoretical model that highlights the drawbacks and merits of a number of policies aimed at putting checks on child labor in debt bondage.