How Would Your Kids Vote if I Open my Doors? Evidence from Venezuela

For how long does cultural heritage persist? Do the culturally inherited values of immigrants dilute as generations pass? We answer these question by studying the relationship between revealed political behavior of immigrant families and the culture of the place where they migrated from, either one or many generations ago. Using surnames as indicators of region of origin of Italians in Venezuela, we study the effect of cultural heritage on two indicators of revealed political behavior: (i) propensity for civic engagement, and (ii) propensity for redistribution. A well established literature documents greater propensity for civic engagement and lower propensity for redistribution among Northern Italians. In Venezuela, we measure the former by turnout before the era of political polarization and the latter by signing behavior against Hugo Chávez in the 2004 recall referendum drive. Despite the fact that the wave of Italian immigration to Venezuela occurred more than half a century before the events studied in this paper, we do not find a greater propensity for civic engagement nor preference against redistribution among descendants from Northern as opposed to Southern Italians, suggesting that cultural assimilation may be a strong determinant of political behavior in the long run.Social capital, political incorporation of immigrants, family economics, redistribution, political preferences, civic engagement, Latin America

Is There a Numbers vs. Rights Trade-off in Immigration Policy? What the Data Say

This paper explores the empirical support behind the idea that there is a trade-off between the size of the migrant population and the rights and entitlements enjoyed by immigrants. We first look at the empirical correlation between measures of migrants’ rights and the size of the stock of immigrants in a number of existing databases. Using data on migrants’ rights from three recent studies—the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Migrant Accessibility Index, the Migration Policy Group and British Council’s Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX) and the Human Development Report Office’s Migrant Entitlements and Services Index—we fail to find a systematic correlation of any sign. We then turn to regression analysis using OLS and instrumental variable techniques and again fail to find evidence in favor of the existence of a correlation. The numerical magnitudes of the correlations suggest a quantitatively small relationship which in several cases is positive rather than negative.migration rights and entitlements, measurement, migration data

Have Collapses in Infrastructure Spending led to Cross-Country Divergence in Per Capita GDP?

This paper explores whether the post-1980 decline in infrastructure investment in developing countries is a source of growing disparities in world per capita GDP. I start by reviewing the literature on the infrastructure-productivity link, arguing that a balanced reading of previous studies points to a significant effect of infrastructure provision on productivity. I then empirically study whether retrenchments in infrastructure provision have played a role in growing disparities using a data set of country-level infrastructure stocks for 121 countries since 1960. Cutbacks in infrastructure investment appear to be at most a minor cause of growing divergence in per capita incomes.infrastructure, public capital, convergence, productivity, economic growth

Openness and growth: what have we learned?

This paper discusses recent evidence regarding the existence of a cross-country empirical relationship between openness to international trade and economic growth. I discuss the empirical contributions of Warner (2003), Dollar and Kraay (2002), and Wacziarg and Welch (2003), and argue that these studies fail to convincingly establish a positive link between trade and growth. I also discuss the 1990-03 experience and show that growth does not display a significant correlation with any measure of trade openness over this period.economic growth, openness, trade policy. cross-country growth regressions

How Would your Kids Vote if I Open my Doors? Evidence from Venezuela

For how long does cultural heritage persist? Do the culturally inherited values of immigrants dilute as generations pass? We answer these question by studying the relationship between revealed political behavior of immigrant families and the culture of the place where they migrated from, either one or many generations ago. Using surnames as indicators of region of origin of Italians in Venezuela, we study the effect of cultural heritage on two indicators of revealed political behavior: (i) propensity for civic engagement, and (ii) propensity for redistribution. A well established literature documents greater propensity for civic engagement and lower propensity for redistribution among Northern Italians. In Venezuela, we measure the former by turnout before the era of political polarization and the latter by signing behavior against Hugo Chávez in the 2004 recall referendum drive. Despite the fact that the wave of Italian immigration to Venezuela occurred more than half a century before the events studied in this paper, we do not find a greater propensity for civic engagement nor preference against redistribution among descendants from Northern as opposed to Southern Italians, suggesting that cultural assimilation may be a strong determinant of political behavior in the long run.Social capital, political incorporation of immigrants, family economics, redistribution, political preferences, civic engagement, Latin America

High throughput phenotyping method for water use efficiency in rice under field conditions : [Abstract, P 6.04]

A collaborative CIAT/Cirad project aims to create new improved upland rice germplasm for drought tolerance based on population improvement through recurrent selection (RS). In the framework of a multidisciplinary team (ecophysiology, molecular genetics and breeding), we seek to enhance this breeding strategy through the integration of marker-assisted breeding tools. This requires improving methods for high throughput phenotyping in the field. Four hundreds lines selected from diverse recurrent populations were screened under drought conditions in Villavicencio CIAT experimental station (Colombia) during the dry season 2008/2009. Drought stress was applied for two weeks at panicle initiation stage. Drought response under water deficit at flowering stage was evaluated based on soil moisture and canopy temperature at flowering with an infra-red thermographic camera and final grain yield. Leaf temperature at/around flowering stage exhibited strongly significant varietal differences that were negatively correlated with soil moisture content and yield. This phenotyping approach permitted identifying genotypes that display good maintenance of transpiration (and thus sustained growth) under drought stress, related mainly to limited water extraction and/or greater root depth; it also enabled identifying genotypes that have high transpirationrates (and thus higher potential growth rates) under irrigated control conditions. Selecting suitable combinations of both characteristics is expected to help identifying drought tolerant material with high yield potential. The methodology will be further improved by (1) including on each thermographic photo a wet/dry object to normalize canopy temperatures against weather fluctuations for situations where micro-meteorological backup is not available, and (2) sampling leaf material for complementary delta 13C measurements indicative of transpiration efficiency (TE). The integrated methodology is being implemented in RS breeding schemes and in parallel in a genetic association study on a japonica rice variety panel, in order to identify promising genomic regions and polymorphisms for marker development. This will eventually permit developing efficient marker-assisted recurrent selection (MARS) approaches. (Texte intégral

Decline in Telomere Length by Age and Effect Modification by Gender, Allostatic Load and Comorbidities in National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (1999-2002)

Background: This study aims to assess the decline in telomere length (TL) with age and evaluate effect modification by gender, chronic stress, and comorbidity in a representative sample of the US population. Methods: Cross-sectional data on 7826 adults with a TL measurement, were included from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, years 1999–2002. The population rate of decline in TL across 10-year age categories was estimated using crude and adjusted regression. Results: In an adjusted model, the population rate of decline in TL with age was consistent and linear for only three age categories: 20–29 (β = -0.0172, 95% CI: -0.0342, -0.0002), 50–59 (β = -0.0182, 95% CI: -0.0311, -0.0054) and 70–79 (β = -0.0170, 95% CI: -0.0329, -0.0011) years. The population rate of decline in TL with age was significantly greater for males and those with high allostatic load and a history of comorbidities. When the population rate of decline in TL was analyzed by gender in 10-year age bins, a fairly consistent yet statistically non-significant decline for males was observed; however, a trough in the rate was observed for females in the age categories 20–29 years (β = -0.0284, 95% CI: -0.0464, -0.0103) and 50–59 years (β = -0.0211, 95% CI: -0.0391, -0.0032). To further elucidate the gender difference observed in the primary analyses, secondary analyses were conducted with reproductive and hormonal status; a significant inverse association was found between TL and parity, menopause, and age at menopause. Conclusions: TL was shorter with increasing age and this decline was modified by gender, chronic stress and comorbidities; individuals with chronic morbidity and/or chronic stress and females in their twenties and fifties experienced greater decline. Female reproductive factors, i.e., parity and menopause, were associated with TL