Suchergebnisse

Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Illustration: Puerto Rico's Place in the Caribbean -- Chapter 1. Island Paradox: Puerto Rico in the 1990s -- Chapter 2. Population Growth and Demographic Changes -- Chapter 3. Migration between Puerto Rico and the United States -- Chapter 4. The Socioeconomic Transformation: Income, Poverty, and Education -- Chapter 5. The Labor Market and the Unemployment Crisis -- Chapter 6. Immigration and the Population Born outside Puerto Rico -- Chapter 7. The Puerto Rican Population in the United States

This paper examines how democracy affects long-run growth by influencing the quality of governance. Empirical evidence is presented first showing that measures of the quality of governance are substantially higher in more democratic countries. A general equilibrium, endogenous growth model is then built to show how a governance improving democracy raises growth. In this model, stronger democratic institutions influence governance by constraining the actions of corrupt officials. Reducing corruption, in turn, stimulates technological change and spurs economic growth. Empirical evidence is presented showing that democracy is in fact a significant determinant of total factor productivity (TFP) growth between 1960 and 1990 in a cross-section of countries. But this contribution occurs only insofar as stronger democratic institutions are associated with greater quality of governance.

This paper studies the English language proficiency levels of immigrants to the United States as determined from scores on a standardized test explicitly designed to measure reading proficiency. The data are disaggregated by area of origin and year of immigration. The connection between English deficiency levels and wages is then examined. In contrast to previous studies, it is found that English deficiency unambiguously depresses the wages of immigrants below what their other human capital characteristics suggest they should earn in the U.S. labor market. At the same time, the data show that, among the sample of young adults examined, there is a remarkable correlation between learning of English and time lived in the United States. The study indicates that policies encouraging the acquisition of English as a second language may provide a high dividend in the form of economic progress among immigrants.