Suchergebnisse

This paper examines whether immigrants increase the likelihood of unemployment among native-born workers in the European Union. Earlier papers measure the presence of immigrants in the local labor market by computing the share of the foreigners in specific regions. This paper, instead, utilizes a unique feature of the 1988 Eurobarometer, which asks the native-born workers' assessment of the number of immigrants in the local market. By doing so, the association between unemployment of native-born workers in the European Union and presence of immigrants in the local labor market is evaluated from the native-born workers' own perspective. The empirical results indicate that there is little, if any, association between the presence of immigrants and unemployment among native-born workers.

Governments in more developed economies partially compensate import-competing industries when world prices fall, i.e. they lean against the wind. In less developed economies we often observe liberalization in response to the same shock. We use a political-support maximization model with revenue motives to derive conditions under which a rational policy-maker would respond to lower world prices by reducing tariff protection for an import-competing industry. An initial tariff that exceeds the maximum revenue level proves necessary but not sufficient for politically optimal liberalization following a fall in the world price of the importable good.

Several post-Soviet states have introduced policies to improve the relative economic, political or social position of formerly disadvantaged populations. Using one example of such policies - "Kazakhisation" in Kazakhstan - we investigate their impact on the comparative earnings of two directly affected groups, ethnic Russians and ethnic Kazakhs. Oaxaca decompositions show that Kazakhs are better endowed with income generating characteristics but receive lower returns to these characteristics than Russians. The second effect dominates and Kazakhs have comparatively lower average living standards. While "Kazakhisation" may have been successful in a narrow sense - i.e., by empowering Kazakhs to take on leading positions in the public sector - more broadly it has been a selfdefeating policy as it has pushed ethnic Russians into jobs that often evolved into positions that (at least in monetary terms) are superior now to those held by Kazakhs.

Several post-Soviet states have introduced policies to improve the relative economic, political or social position of formerly disadvantaged populations. Using one example of such policies - "Kazakhisation" in Kazakhstan - we investigate their impact on the comparative earnings of two directly affected groups, ethnic Russians and ethnic Kazakhs. Oaxaca decompositions show that Kazakhs are better endowed with income generating characteristics but receive lower returns to these characteristics than Russians. The second effect dominates and Kazakhs have comparatively lower average living standards. While "Kazakhisation" may have been successful in a narrow sense - i.e., by empowering Kazakhs to take on leading positions in the public sector - more broadly it has been a self-defeating policy as it has pushed ethnic Russians into jobs that often evolved into positions that (at least in monetary terms) are superior now to those held by Kazakhs.

Several post-Soviet states have introduced policies to improve the relative economic, political or social position of formerly disadvantaged populations. Using one example of such policies – "Kazakhisation" in Kazakhstan – we investigate their impact on the comparative earnings of two directly affected groups, ethnic Russians and ethnic Kazakhs. Oaxaca decompositions show that Kazakhs are better endowed with income generating characteristics but receive lower returns to these characteristics than Russians. The second effect dominates and Kazakhs have comparatively lower average living standards. While "Kazakhisation" may have been successful in a narrow sense – i.e., by empowering Kazakhs to take on leading positions in the public sector – more broadly it has been a self-defeating policy as it has pushed ethnic Russians into jobs that often evolved into positions that (at least in monetary terms) are superior now to those held by Kazakhs.

We examine the effects of exchange rate and political risks on foreign direct investment (FDI) for multinationals. Our strategy is to examine FDI by U.S. firms at two levels: in all industries and on the subset of only firms in manufacturing industries. When investing in developed economies the firms appear to take past and present variation in exchange rates into consideration. When investing in less developed nations the past and present variation does not appear to weigh as heavily as the present and future variation. Decreasing political risk increases FDI.

This paper investigates economic and political determinants of protection across the secondary (manufacturing) sector. Economic factors can be summarized by the infant industry argument and we expect industries which are relatively efficient compared to the rest-of-the-world to have low levels of protection. Moreover, the degree of protection should change as the relative efficiency of an industry changes over time. Political factors reflect pressure group politics: relatively inefficient industries may enjoy a great deal of protection because of political lobbying.