Offshoring, Relocation and the Speed of Convergence: Convergence in the Enlarged European Union

Economic convergence of the new member states (NMS) of the EU towards the old EU countries (EU-15), not only in terms of real income, but also in nominal terms, is of paramount importance for the whole of the EU. We build a dynamic CGE model, starting from the Balassa-Samuelson two-sector framework, but modify and enlarge it with forward-looking investment, consumption, and labour mobility behaviour to address several other issues like welfare and sustainability in terms of foreign indebtedness. At the same time we evaluate the impact of convergence on the EU-15 countries also, by endogenising offshoring and the related FDI flows from them to the NMS. Thereby we identify various effects of relocation and globalisation on the EU-15 enlarging the standard set of effects of globalisation and demonstrate the key role of their dynamic nature in the process of convergence. We find that in a general equilibrium setting fears of large adverse effects of a relocation of EU-15 manufacturing to the NMS are not well founded. In contrast, offshoring appears to be a win-win case for both the EU-15 and the NMS in terms of real income. The convergence of the NMS is fairly rapid, but will involve a persistent rapid inflation rate.convergence, relocation, new member states, EU-15

DEMOGRAPHIC RESEARCH

Background: Mexican women in the United States (US) have higher rates of fertility compared to other ethnic groups and women in Mexico. Whether variation in women’s access to family planning services or patterns of contraceptive use contributes to this higher fertility has received little attention. Objective: We explore Mexican women’s contraceptive use, taking into account women’s place in the reproductive life course. Methods: Using nationally representative samples from the US (National Survey of Family Growth) and Mexico (Encuesta National de la Dinámica Demográfica), we compared the parity-specific frequency of contraceptive use and fertility intentions for non-migrant women, foreign-born Mexicans in the US, US-born Mexicans, and whites. Results: Mexican women in the US were less likely to use IUDs and more likely to use hormonal contraception than women in Mexico. Female sterilization was the most common method among higher parity women in both the US and Mexico, however, foreign-born Mexicans were less likely to be sterilized, and the least likely to use any permanent contraceptive method. Although foreign-born Mexicans were slightly less likely to report that they did not want more children, differences in method use remained after controlling for women’s fertility intentionsPopulation Research Cente

Hypertension among Oral Contraceptive Users in El Paso, Texas

On the U.S.-Mexico border, residents frequently cross into Mexico to obtain medications or medical care. We previously reported relatively high prevalence of hypertension among Latina oral contraceptive users in El Paso, particularly those obtaining pills over the counter (OTC) in Mexico. Here, we examine factors associated with having hypertension among 411 OTC users and 399 clinic users. We also assess hypertension awareness and interest in using blood pressure kiosks. Women age 35 to 44 and who had BMI ≥ 30 kg/m2 had higher odds of having hypertension. 59% of hypertensive women had unrecognized hypertension, and 77% of all participants would use a blood pressure kiosk; there were no significant differences between clinic and OTC users. Alternative approaches to increase access to health screenings are needed in this setting, where OTC pill use among women with unrecognized hypertension confers unique health risksPopulation Research Cente

How to restore sustainability of the Euro?

We reassess the result of unsustainability of the euro with respect to inflation differentials claimed by Wickens (2007) by specifying an open-economy version of a two-region New Keynesian model for EMU and demonstrate that the result by Wickens does not hold in general. We are able to derive a result that the model is determinate for a wide range of policy rules so that the sustainability of the euro area and the member countries is reached over time with respect to supply and demand shocks and emerged imbalances in price levels and competitiveness. We then enlarge the numerical analysis to consider EMU and sustainability in the case, prevailing currently, where a high debt country should both restore its competitiveness and its fiscal balance, and the policies required from the single monetary policy and the national fiscal policies. Strong fiscal consolidation and far-reaching successful structural reforms are needed to reach sustainability in the sense that emerged imbalances in competitiveness and price levels and the threat of ever mounting debt levels could be eliminated over the medium run. We also illustrate how the current deflationary adjustment involves a major polarisation in economic developments within the euro area

Palkankorotusten vaihtoehdot ja talouden kasvu: Toimialatarkasteluja Suomen teollisuudella

The wage norm to be applied in the economy has been intensively debated in Finland. By this is meant, to which level of productivity rise the wage hikes should be linked. In this paper we examine the economy-wide productivity rise vs the industry-level rise in productivity as a basis for a wage norm. We evaluate the consequences of these alternatives from the point of view of three industries of Finnish manufacturing, the development of which has widely diverged from each other, namely paper industry, electronics industry and textile, clothing, leather and footware industry. We form a simulation model and simulate with it the above wage norms over the period 1975-2002. The model describes the investment behaviour and labour demand as a function of wage setting. The results show that the choice of the wage norm can have a substantial influence, especially over the longer run, when it can lead to a sizeable cumulative impact on the industry. The incomes policy norm, i.e., that which takes the aggregate productivity rise as its norm, has given room for the profitable industries to grow, but, on the other hand, led to a deeper recession in the less profitable industries. In the application of the industry norm, it is important to take into account the possible secular rise in the price-cost margin of the industry concerned, which notably applies to the Finnish electronics industry. Doing so, it turns out that the industry wage norm would have fared better in the electronics industry than the aggregate norm. When considering the results, it must be taken into account that the effects caused by changes in labour supply are discarded here

Climate policies and economic growth

A Climate Agreement, like the one reached in Kyoto in 1997, on reducing greenhouse gas emissions may have important effects on the global and the national economies. The aim of this paper is to make some basic numerical evaluations of the economic effects of climate policies, imposing a ceiling on the use of energy input in production in a single economy. First, we make an evaluation under immobile and internationally mobile domestic factors of production, and infer how much international factor mobility, so-called carbon leakage, can magnify the adverse effects. Next, we introduce optimal endogenous growth, so that environmental policies can potentially lead to the introduction of less-polluting energy technologies. The general conclusion of this is that induced R&D in less-polluting energy technologies is likely to reduce the economic burden of climate policies only marginally. Under an internationally tradable emissions permit scheme, however, the endogenous technical change reacts quite vigorously to the price of the pollution right. Finally, we solve for the optimal subsidy to R&D in clean energy technology in a market economy, and find it to be quite sizeable

Removing Citizens: Parenthood, Immigration Courts, and Derivative Citizenship

As a creature of administrative law, Congress has set forth clear, statutory definitions of “parent,” “child,” “son,” “daughter,” and “step-parent.” As a practical matter, these terms create a uniform system by which family relationships are recognized and immigration benefits are conferred. In one notable exception, Congress directs adjudicators to look to state law when determining which children are citizens at birth. Derivative citizenship, the legal process whereby birthright citizenship is passed from a citizen to his or her child who is born outside of the United States, is a technical maze. There are at least nine different statutes in effect that may apply to a person, depending on the child’s birth date and the parents’ citizenship and marital status. Derivative citizenship may be conferred both at the time of birth, and, when specific conditions met, retroactively. Congress made the express policy choice to defer to state definitions of legitimation (also known as parentage) when conferring citizenship. This requires immigration adjudicators to then know, understand, and properly apply the laws of 50 different states when conferring citizenship status. This Article’s focus is on a troubling, contemporary application of derivative citizenship that is occurring in removal proceedings. Often times, a child with one citizen parent will grow up, assuming that he or she is a citizen. It is only after committing a crime in their 20s or 30s do they first learn that their parents never filed the paperwork to declare their status. Although they are still eligible to have their derivative citizenship status conferred retroactively, government attorneys are contesting that the parents who raised them are in fact their legal parents. In extreme cases, the government attorneys are first disclosing to some of these people that the men and women who raised them are not in fact their genetic parents. This Article highlights numerous problems with this practice. Of most import, the immigration judges and government attorneys are misapplying state law when determining who is and is not a parent of a child. Whereas state laws have made clear that love, support, and care is proof of parentage, (and that collateral challenges to parentage may neither be raised after a set number of years nor by strangers to the family unit) immigration courts are ignoring state law to declare that blood alone is the sine qua non of parentage. This Article presents the derivative citizenship scheme, summarizes state law legitimation and parentage statutes, and argues that the immigration courts and government attorneys are grossly distorting family law. Of note, immigration courts are the least desirable forum to adjudicate these claims due to their systematic (and perhaps deliberate) overburdened workload, lack of representation to the alleged (and usually detained) citizen, and the incentive by the government attorney to remove individuals with criminal records, even when those individuals are in fact citizens. The Article ends with proposals to remove these claims from a contested removal proceeding and into either administrative or district court proceedings whereby the adjudicator can faithfully apply the complexities of family law without the distraction of knowing someone’s criminal history

DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN CLITICS AND WORDS IN DEGEMA, NIGERIA

Defining clitics has been attempted in the literature. Similarities between clitics, affixes, and words have been pointed out. Kari concluded that clitics are not affixes. The question then is if Degema clitics are not affixes, are they words? This paper attempts to distinguish between clitics and words through the similarities and the differences. In showing their differences, some criteria that have been discussed in the literature, especially those discussed in Zwicky (1985) will be highlighted