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821. The Economic Logic of Illegal Immigration

Author:
Gordon H. Hanson
Publication Date:
04-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Illegal immigration is a source of mounting concern for politicians in the United States. In the past ten years, the U.S. population of illegal immigrants has risen from five million to nearly twelve million, prompting angry charges that the country has lost control over its borders. Congress approved measures last year that have significantly tightened enforcement along the U.S.-Mexico border in an effort to stop the flow of unauthorized migrants, and it is expected to make another effort this year at the first comprehensive reform of immigration laws in more than twenty years.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Development, and Economics
Political Geography:
United States, Latin America, and Mexico

822. The Case for Wage Insurance

Author:
Robert LaLonde
Publication Date:
06-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
An important component of U.S. productivity growth and economic competitiveness is a flexible labor market that shifts workers quickly into the jobs where they are most needed. Much of the time, this job shifting is fairly painless: Workers quickly find new positions that pay at least as much as their previous ones, often without an intervening spell of unemployment. But prime-aged and older workers can sometimes suffer large, long-term income losses. Such workers' well-founded fears about job displacement lead them and their advocates to resist policies such as free trade that are sometimes blamed for the job shifting. This resistance harms the majority of households because trade helps to lower prices, raise real incomes and promote economic growth. It also has foreign policy consequences since it threatens the United States' ability to play its traditional post–World War II role as the bulwark of a relatively open international trading system. And by reducing the dynamism of the U.S. economy, resistance to trade and other pro-growth policies can weaken the nation's long-term ability to exert global leadership.
Topic:
Economics, Government, and Markets
Political Geography:
United States

823. Bubbles in real estate? A Longer-Term Comparative Analysis of Housing Prices in Europe and the US

Author:
Daniel Gros
Publication Date:
10-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
The downturn in the US housing market has attracted a lot of attention as it has sparked a global financial crisis. It is generally assumed that the eurozone does not face a similar problem. This paper shows that this assumption is wrong. The euro area average index of real housing prices has risen almost as much as that of the US and is now (as that of the US) about 40% above its 30-year average. This is similar to the overvaluation of Japanese real estate at the height of the Japanese bubble, which was then followed by over a decade of continuous decline. Over the last 30 years, the euro area index for real housing prices has tended to follow that of the US quite closely. The lag is now much shorter than in the 1970s or 1980s. The euro area market is thus likely to turn soon as well. One feature of housing price cycles that tends to be forgotten is their extraordinary length: many last for more than ten years. This persistence means that the downswing, which now seems to have started, is likely to last at least until the next decade. Within the euro area, there are large divergences: cases of 'froth' (Spain, for example) co-exist alongside cases of declining prices (Germany). These divergences have persisted for over a decade and have led to important macroeconomic disequilibria. The paper also develops an indicator of 'housing overhang', which shows by how much demand for new construction has to decline to bring the supply of housing back to normal levels. This indicator suggests that there is virtually no housing overhang in the eurozone on average and that it is of a manageable magnitude in the US. Spain and Ireland, however, face a massive housing overhang and thus probably a sharp deceleration of construction demand.
Topic:
Economics and Markets
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

824. It's One World Out There: The Global Consensus on Selecting the World Bank's Next President

Author:
David Wheeler
Publication Date:
06-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
In May 2007 CGD launched an online survey of the global development community on three issues: the selection process for the next World Bank president; criteria for rating the candidates; and actual ratings for nine candidates who had been named by the international media. Between May 22 and May 31, CGD received nearly 700 responses from people whose characteristic s reflect the diversity of the international development community. Survey participants represent 71 nations; all world regions; high-, middle- and low-income countries; a variety of professional affiliations; and all adult age groups. About 30% of respondents are women.
Topic:
Development, Economics, International Organization, and Politics
Political Geography:
United States

825. Program for the Study of Biofuels, Poverty and Food Security

Author:
Jikun Huang, Mark Rosengrant, Rosamond Naylor, Walter P. Falcon, David Victor, Kenneth Cassman, and Scott Rozelle
Publication Date:
02-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
The recent global expansion of biofuels production is an intense topic of discussion in both the popular and academic press. Much of the debate surrounding biofuels has focused on narrow issues of energy efficiency and fossil fuel substitution, to the exclusion of broader questions concerning the effects of large-scale biofuels development on commodity markets, land use patterns, and the global poor. There is reason to think these effects will be very large. The majority of poor people living in chronic hunger are net consumers of staple food crops; poor households spend a large share of their budget on starchy staples; and as a result, price hikes for staple agricultural commodities have the largest impact on poor consumers. For example, the rapidly growing use of corn for ethanol in the U.S. has recently sent corn prices soaring, boosting farmer incomes domestically but causing riots in the streets of Mexico City over tortilla prices. Preliminary analysis suggests that such price movements, which directly threaten hundreds of millions of households around the world, could be more than a passing phenomenon. Rapid biofuels development is occurring throughout the developed and developing world, transforming commodity markets and increasingly linking food prices to a volatile energy sector. Yet there remains little understanding of how these changes will affect global poverty and food security, and an apprehension on the part of many governments as to whether and how to participate in the biofuels revolution.
Topic:
Agriculture, Development, Economics, Globalization, Government, International Political Economy, International Trade and Finance, and Poverty
Political Geography:
United States and Mexico

826. Non-Working Time, Income Inequality and Quality of Life Comparisons: The Case of the U.S. vs. the Netherlands

Author:
Ellen Verbake and Thomas A. DiPrete
Publication Date:
06-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
The distribution of well-being in society and comparisons of well-being across societies depend both on the amount of inequality at the national level and also on the national average level of well-being. Comparisons between the U.S. and western Europe show that inequality is greater in the U.S. but that average GDP/capita is also greater in the U.S., and most Americans have higher standards of living than do Western Europeans at comparable locations in their national income distributions. What is less well-known is that (depending on the country) much or all of this gap arises from differences in the level of working hours in the U.S. and in Western Europe. Crossnational comparisons of well-being have typically relied on the methodology of generalized Lorenz curves (GLC), but this approach privileges disposable income and cash transfers while ignoring other aspects of welfare state and labor market structure that potentially affect the distribution of well-being in a society. We take an alternative approach that focuses on the value of time use and the different distributions of work and family time that are generated by each country's labor market and social welfare institutions. We show that reasonable estimates of the greater contribution to well-being from non-market activities such as the raising of children or longer vacations overturn claims in the literature that the U.S. offers greater well-being to more of its citizens than do Western European countries.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
United States, America, Europe, and Netherlands

827. Jacob K. Javits and Latin American Economic Integration

Author:
Salvador Rivera
Publication Date:
08-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Independent Institute
Abstract:
Since the end of the Second World War the United States has zealously pursued internationalism, the policy of establishing a new economic and political order based on free trade. Internationalism views the world as one community. It seeks to create a common body of political, economic and social values with an emphasis on human rights, environmentalism and the expansion of democracy.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
United States and Latin America

828. Non-Working Time, Income Inequality, and Quality of Life Comparisons: The Case of the U.S. vs. the Netherlands

Author:
Ellen Verbakel and Thomas DiPrete
Publication Date:
12-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University
Abstract:
The distribution of well-being in society and comparisons of well-being across societies depend both on the amount of inequality at the national level and also on the national average level of well-being. Comparisons between the U.S. and western Europe show that inequality is greater in the U.S. but that average GDP/capita is also greater in the U.S., and most Americans have higher standards of living than do Western Europeans at comparable locations in their national income distributions. What is less well-known is that (depending on the country) much or all of this gap arises from differences in the level of working hours in the U.S. and in Western Europe. Cross-national comparisons of well-being have typically relied on the methodology of generalized Lorenz curves (GLC), but this approach privileges disposable income and cash transfers while ignoring other aspects of welfare state and labor market structure that potentially affect the distribution of well-being in a society. We take an alternative approach that focuses on the value of time use and the different distributions of work and family time that are generated by each country's labor market and social welfare institutions. We show that reasonable estimates of the greater contribution to well-being from non-market activities such as the raising of children or longer vacations overturn claims in the literature that the U.S. offers greater well-being to more of its citizens than do Western European countries.
Topic:
Economics, Markets, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, and Netherlands

829. Long-Term Effects of a Recession at Labor Market Entry in Japan and the United States

Author:
Yuji Genda, Ayako Kondo, and Souichi Ohta
Publication Date:
12-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University
Abstract:
We examine effects of entering the labor market during a recession on subsequent earnings and employment for Japanese and American men, using comparable household labor force surveys. Previous analyses focus on search theoretic and implicit-contract arguments, which have their strongest effects on more educated workers. We argue that, in a country like Japan which has a dual labor market, there is an additional mechanism that affects mainly less educated workers. Namely, these workers are more likely to be trapped in the secondary sector if they graduate during a recession. We find a persistent, strong negative effect on earnings for less educated Japanese men, in contrast to no long-term effect for less educated American men; also, a substantial part of the effect for less educated Japanese men is attributed to the decreased probability of regular employment. The effect for the more educated group is more or less similar in both countries.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Markets
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, America, Israel, and Asia

830. A New Bi-continental Approach to Transatlantic Defence Cooperation

Author:
Michele Nones
Publication Date:
06-2007
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The International Spectator
Institution:
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:
The prospect of transatlantic cooperation in the field of defence systems depends on reaching an acceptable point of equilibrium. Without it, Europe would find the strategic, political, economic, and industrial risks of total American predominance in this field (with the consequent loss of technical and production expertise) unacceptable. The reduction of the gap between Europe and the United States depends on the integration of the European defence market. This must not be seen as a risk for transatlantic collaboration, but as an opportunity. Building up a transatlantic market could also improve the efficiency of the American market by increasing competition. This collaboration, based not on bilateral, national, or multilateral agreements, but instead on bi-continental cooperation, is the challenge that Europe and the United States must face and meet together.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
United States, America, and Europe