The Impact of Resident Status Regulations on Immigrants' Labor Supply: Evidence for France

Many OECD countries have changed the rules for immigrants in recent decades, generally making harder to enter and to stay. France is one example. This paper studies the immigrants' response to the 2004 reform of the immigration law, which made it harder for foreigners to obtain resident status. The strategy for identification exploits a discontinuity in exposure to the reform, determined by the time of entry. The first result is that the 2004 reform prompted a wave of departures among low-skilled, unemployed, unmarried men. This effect is observed among those with previous work experience in France and searching for work, indicating that the difficulty to find a job without resident status creates an incentive for outmigration. Second, the obtention of resident status lowers significantly but marginally the labor supply of women, consistently with an adjustment role of women's work, and with a small substitution effect of labor income with welfare benefits. Overall, these results suggest that restrictions on access to resident status prompted outmigration, but not among the population with the most elastic labor supply. Thus, the reform did not reach its main objectives: selection occurred, but not of those less willing to work; cutting access to benefits increased labor supply, but only marginally

Caged Morpholino Oligonucleotide for Control of Gene Expression in Zebrafish

To control gene expression in vivo with spatial and temporal precision remains a significant hurdle in laboratory studies of development as well as clinical genetic therapies. Here we demonstrate such control over gene expression by use of photochemistry to reversibly inactivate the hybridization of a nucleic acid analog used for specific protein knockdown. A morpholino oligonucleotide, commonly used for knockdown of protein expression in developmental studies, was “caged” using carbodiimide conjugate chemistry which yielded photocleavable adducts that can be removed with light exposure. Photochemical inactivation approaches to produce caged molecules have been used to control the spatiotemporal activity of biomolecules such as nucleotides, neurotransmitters, proteins and nucleic acids. In this case, the morpholino oligonucleotide was caged through direct alkylation of exocylic amines with a carboxylic acid-based nitrobenzyl cage compound to demonstrate blockade of hybridization. Due to the site of attachment on nucleobases, results indicate that presumably, any nucleic acid antisense molecule could be used in this reaction scheme and thus, effectively caged. The degree of cage alkylation was determined using absorbance spectrophotometry, and the light-induced control over hybridization was characterized with gel-shift and fluorescence-based melting temperature assays. Using a behavioral assay in the zebrafish embryonic model as an endpoint for synthetic molecule assessment, in vivo demonstration of light-induced protein knockdown was shown where caged morpholino oligonucleotides do not possess protein knockdown activity until exposed to near-UV light. Perfect binary on/off behavioral responses with light exposure were not observed in the in vivo studies, presumably due to the statistical, or random-style of cage attachment to the many suitable bases on the oligonucleotide. This investigation should act to expand caged morpholino oligonucleotide technologies, and more generally antisense technologies as a whole due to the ease of synthesis required in caging these compounds, as well as further the understanding of molecular mechanisms governing embryonic development

All the Science That Is Fit to Blog: An Analysis of Science Blogging Practices

This dissertation examines science blogging practices, including motivations, routines and content decision rules, across a wide range of science bloggers. Previous research has largely failed to investigate science blogging practices from science bloggers’ perspective or to establish a sociological framework for understanding how science bloggers decide what to blog about. I address this gap in previous research by conducting qualitative in-depth interviews with 50 science bloggers and an extensive survey of blogging motivations, approaches, content decisions rules, values and editorial constraints for over 600 active science bloggers. Results reveal that science blog content is shaped heavily by not only individual factors including personal interest, but also a variety of social forces at levels of routines, organizations or blogging communities, and social institutions. Factors revealed herein to shape science blog content are placed into a sociological framework, an adapted version of Shoemaker and Reese’s Hierarchical Model of Influences, in order to guide current and future research on the sociology of science blogging. Shoemaker and Reese’s Hierarchical Model of Influences is a model of the factors that influence mass media content, which has been used previously by mass communication researchers to guide analysis of mass media content production. In the visual model, concentric circles represent relative hierarchical levels of influences on media content, starting an individuals and expanding out to routines, organizations, extra-media influences and ideology. I adapt this model based on the factors found herein to influence science blog content, such as bloggers’ individual motivations, editorial constraints and access to information sources

The science of science blogging – the complicated task of defining a science blog.

What is the definition of a science blog? Is it merely a tool that disseminates, explains, comments upon, investigates, aggregates or otherwise deals with science? An increasing number of science blogs also comment upon the process and communication of science itself. Paige Brown Jarreau shares her plans for navigating research in this area as she explores the diversity of science blogging styles, approaches, formats and authors

Price discrimination in bribe payments: Evidence from informal cross-border trade in West Africa

International audienceWhat factors explain the persistence and pervasiveness of corruption in certain parts of the world? In West Africa, many day-to-day transactions require the payment of bribes. Quantitative evidence on these bribes and their determinants is scarce. This paper sheds light on the level and the frequency of bribe payments in informal coss-border trade. It examines how bribes depend on the trade regime and on market structure. We rely on data from a survey of traders in Benin to estimate the determinants of bribe payments. We exploit variations in the trade regime across Benin’s borders, as well as changes in trade restrictions over time and variations in route availability across space and time. We find that reductions in trade barriers help to lower bribes, but do not eliminate them, with bribes remaining frequent in liberalized trade regimes. These results suggest that collusive corruption – used to circumvent regulations and taxes – coexists with coercive corruption, where officials use their monopoly power to extract transfers from traders

Terms-of-Trade Impacts of Trade Agreements and the Choice of Trade Policy

This paper studies the impacts and determinants of trade policy. I use data on applied tariff protection of world countries over 2001-2007 to estimate sector-level trade elasticities. I then calibrate a structural gravity model of world trade. I compute the impacts of trade agreements which were implemented and of those which were not. I find that expected real income gains predict the signing of PTAs. Decomposing these gains shows that domestic mill price increases, reflecting market access gains, have a larger impact than the impact on the consumer price index. I also find that larger expected gains from multilateral liberalization reduce the probability to engage in preferential agreements