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282. The Dispersal of Immigrants in the 1990s
- Author:
- Randy Capps, Michael Fix, and Jeffrey Passel
- Publication Date:
- 11-2002
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Urban Institute
- Abstract:
- The U.S. immigrant population grew rapidly during the 1990s, with growth rates especially high across a wide band of states in the Southeast, Midwest, and Rocky Mountain regions. In many of these states, the foreign-born population more than doubled between 1990 and 2000.
- Topic:
- Demographics, Human Welfare, and Migration
- Political Geography:
- United States
283. Growing Global Migration and Its Implications for the United States
- Publication Date:
- 03-2001
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
- Abstract:
- During the next 15 years, globalization, demographic imbalances between OECD and developing countries, and interstate and civil conflicts will fuel increasing international migration, much of it illegal. Migration will have positive and negative consequences for sending and receiving countries alike. Other countries' responses to migration issues will affect migration pressures on the United States and a broad range of US economic and security interests.
- Topic:
- Security, Demographics, and Migration
- Political Geography:
- United States
284. Self-Control for the Righteous: toward a Theory of Luxury Pre-Commitment
- Author:
- Ran Kivetz and Itamar Simonson
- Publication Date:
- 08-2001
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University
- Abstract:
- Prior research has examined consumers' use of self-control to avoid hedonic (myopic) temptations, such as overbuying and smoking. We propose that consumers often exercise the opposite form of self-control, whereby they attempt to avoid default forms of spending on necessities and savings in favor of luxury, hedonic purchases. In particular, given the difficulty of choosing hedonic luxury items over necessities and cash in everyday (local) decisions, under certain conditions, consumers pre-commit to hedonic luxury consumption. Such pre-commitments to hedonic luxuries are more likely to occur when their psychological cost is less concrete. These propositions were tested in a series of studies involving real and hypothetical choices as well as process measures. The results indicate that a substantial segment of consumers choose hedonic luxury prizes over cash of equal or greater value; most of these consumers explain such choices as motivated by the need to pre-commit in order to guarantee a hedonic luxury experience and that the award does not end up in the pool of money used for necessities. In addition, consistent with our analysis, the likelihood of pre-committing to hedonic luxuries is enhanced when (a) the consequences of the decision will be realized farther in the future, (b) the odds of winning the reward are lower, and (c) consumers anticipate how they will use each possible award. We also show that hedonic luxury awards are more effective than cash as incentives for participation in a (real) lottery. The theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed.
- Topic:
- Demographics, Economics, and International Trade and Finance
285. The Defense Monitor: Population Growth and Water Resources in the Middle East
- Author:
- Rachel Stohl, Christopher Hellman, Tomas Valasek, Leigh Josey, and Nicholas Berry
- Publication Date:
- 09-2001
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Defense Information
- Abstract:
- Political strife is nothing new in the Middle East. In fact, many of the present-day disputes date back 100 years or more. But the increasing scarcity of renewable water resources and the simultaneous high population growth add new urgency to the necessity to devise a settlement.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Agriculture, Demographics, and Environment
- Political Geography:
- United States and Middle East
286. Access to Land and Land Policy Reforms
- Author:
- Alaine de Janvry and Elisabeth Sadoulet
- Publication Date:
- 04-2001
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- United Nations University
- Abstract:
- Who should have access to land? What is the optimum definition of property rights and use rights in each particular context? Is government intervention justified to influence who has access to land and under what conditions? These questions remain, in most developing countries, highly contentious. It is indeed the case that land is all too often misallocated among potential users and worked under conditions of property or user rights that create perverse incentives. As a consequence, investments to enhance productivity are postponed, and responses to market incentives are weakened; many poor rural households are unable to gain sufficient (or any) access to land when this could be their best option out of poverty; land remains under-used and often idle side-by-side with unsatisfied demands for access to land; land is frequently abused by current users, jeopardizing sustainability; and violence over land rights and land use is all too frequent. With population growth and increasing market integration for the products of the land, these problems tend to become more acute rather than the reverse. As a result, rising pressures to correct these situations have led many countries to reopen the question of access to land and land policy reforms. While large scale expropriative and redistributive land reforms are generally no longer compatible with current political realities, there exist many alternative forms of property and use rights that offer policy instruments to alter the conditions of access to land and land use. A rich agenda of land policy interventions thus exists to alter who has access to land and under what conditions for the purposes of increasing efficiency, reducing poverty, enhancing sustainability, and achieving political stability.Historically, the most glamorous path of access to land has been through statemanaged coercive land reform. In most situations, however, this is not the dominant way land was accessed by current users and, in the future, this will increasingly be the case. Most of the land in use has been accessed through private transfers, community membership, direct appropriation, and market transactions. There are also new types of state-managed programmes of access to land that do not rely on coercion. For governments and development agents (NGOs, bi-lateral and international development agencies), the rapid decline in opportunities to access land through coercive land reform should thus not be seen as the end of the role of the state and development agents in promoting and altering access to land. The following paths of access to land in formal or informal, and in collective or individualized ownership can, in particular, be explored (Figure 1): (1) Intra-family transfers such as inheritances, inter-vivo transfers, and allocation of plots to specific family members; (2) access through community membership and informal land markets; (3) access through land sales markets; and (4) access through specific non-coercive policy interventions such colonization schemes, decollectivization and devolution, and land market-assisted land reform. Access to land in use can also be achieved through land rental markets (informal loans, land rental contracts) originating in any of these forms of land ownership. Each of these paths of access to land has, in turn, implications for the way land is used. Each can also be the object of policy interventions to alter these implications of land use. The focus of this policy brief is to explore each of these paths and analyse how to enhance their roles in helping increase efficiency, reduce poverty, increase equality, enhance sustainability, and achieve political stability.
- Topic:
- Demographics, Economics, and Government
- Political Geography:
- United States
287. Are Immigrants Leaving California? Settlement Patterns of Immigrants in the Late 1990s
- Author:
- Wendy Zimmermann and Jeffrey S. Passel
- Publication Date:
- 04-2001
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Urban Institute
- Abstract:
- For at least the last century and a half, the immigrant population in the United States has been highly concentrated in a handful of states. Even at the beginning of the 20th century, when the foreign-born population was less than half its current size, just over half of all immigrants lived in only six states. By 1990, that share had increased to nearly three-quarters. But, between 1990 and 1999, the geographic concentration of immigrants began to wane slightly, as the foreign-born population grew substantially faster in states that have not traditionally received large numbers of immigrants. This dispersal of the immigrant population is particularly noteworthy in the face of dramatically increased numbers, especially in the new settlement areas, and policy changes surrounding the noncitizen population.
- Topic:
- Demographics, Economics, and Migration
- Political Geography:
- United States and California
288. Russia's Physical and Social Infrastructure: Implications for Future Development
- Publication Date:
- 12-2000
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
- Abstract:
- During the past two years, the National Intelligence Council and the Bureau of Intelligence and Research of the US Department of State sponsored a working group and four seminars with experts from outside the Intelligence Community to examine the impact of societal and infrastructural factors on Russia's future over the next two decades. The factors identified--demography, health, intellectual capital, and physical infrastructure--all pose great challenges to Russia. The purpose of the project was to begin to think through in systematic fashion the difficulties and opportunities confronting Russia's leadership in these four specific areas.
- Topic:
- Demographics, Development, and Government
- Political Geography:
- Russia and United States
289. Insular Autonomy: A Framework for Conflict Settlement? A Comparative Study of Corsica and the Åland Islands
- Author:
- Farimah Daftary
- Publication Date:
- 10-2000
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- European Centre for Minority Issues
- Abstract:
- The aim of this paper is to undertake a comparative evaluation of autonomy as a method of conflict settlement based on two case studies of insular regions in Western Europe: the Åland Islands and Corsica. It will highlight the factors which have contributed to the success of conflict settlement in the case of Åland and draw some lessons from the failure of conflict regulation thus far in Corsica. It then proceeds to analyse the "Matignon Process" (December 1999-July 2000) which culminated in a compromise document presented by French Government on 20 July 2000 to the Corsican representatives. Although its prospects for success are mixed, this is the most significant effort to date by the French Government to resolve the conflict in Corsica through an open and democratic political dialogue with elected representatives of the Corsican population. The measures proposed will result in a third statute and a limited form of autonomy for Corsica, pending constitutional revisions by 2004. This paper will also offer some thoughts on the potential impact of the Corsican reforms on other French regions and territories.
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution, Demographics, Nationalism, and Population
- Political Geography:
- Europe
290. Population, Urbanization, Environment, and Security: A Summary of the Issues
- Author:
- Ellen Brennan
- Publication Date:
- 06-1999
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Wilson Center
- Abstract:
- One of the most striking features of world population growth is the rising predominance of the developing world. Currently, 81 million persons are added annually to the world's population—95 percent of them in developing countries. The second striking feature is related to urban growth. Although the growth of world urban population has been slower than projected twenty years ago, it has nevertheless been unprecedented. In 1950, less than 30 per cent of the world's population were urban dwellers. Between 1995 and 2030, the world's urban population is projected to double—from 2.6 to 5.1 billion, by which time three-fifths of the world's population will be living in urban areas (United Nations 1998b). As in the case of total population, there will be a significant redistribution of world urban population between the developed and the developing regions. Currently, 59 million new urban dwellers are added annually— 89 percent in developing countries. By 2025-2030, 76 million will be added annually—98 percent in developing countries.
- Topic:
- Security, Demographics, Environment, and Industrial Policy