Do Non-Economic Quality of Life Factors Drive Immigration?

This paper contributes to the immigration literature by generating two unique non-economic quality of life (QOL) indices and testing their role on recent migration patterns. Applying the generated quality of life indices in conjunction with other independent welfare measures to an extended gravity model of immigration for 16 OECD destination countries from 1991 to 2000 suggests an insignificant role for QOL in the immigration process. The panel results suggest that other economic variables such as the stock of immigrants from the source country already living in the OECD destination country, population size, relative incomes, and geographic factors all significantly drive the flow of immigration for the sample.immigration, quality of life, gravity model

The Impact of Christian Education and Curriculum on Illegal Media File Sharing Attitudes and Behavior

The purpose of this paper is to examine the ethics and economics behind file sharing and to empirically test the role a Christian education has on illegal file sharing. The empirical results are interesting and find that Christian education has no effect on ethical attitudes or actual stealing behavior, and suggest that faculty at Christian colleges and universities cannot assume that discussions about Christian principles and moral attitudes will automatically be seen in the student behavior that follows. Integration of faith perspectives into actual practice likely needs to be intentionally addressed with specific behavioral examples as the discussion points

Estimating life expectancy and years of life lost for autistic people in the UK: a matched cohort study

Background Previous research has shown that people who have been diagnosed autistic are more likely to die prematurely than the general population. However, statistics on premature mortality in autistic people have often been misinterpreted. In this study we aimed to estimate the life expectancy and years of life lost experienced by autistic people living in the UK. Methods We studied people in the IQVIA Medical Research Database with an autism diagnosis between January 1, 1989 and January 16, 2019. For each participant diagnosed autistic, we included ten comparison participants without an autism diagnosis, matched by age, sex, and primary care practice. We calculated age- and sex-standardised mortality ratios comparing people diagnosed autistic to the reference group. We used Poisson regression to estimate age-specific mortality rates, and life tables to estimate life expectancy at age 18 and years of life lost. We analysed the data separately by sex, and for people with and without a record of intellectual disability. We discuss the findings in the light of the prevalence of recorded diagnosis of autism in primary care compared to community estimates. Findings From a cohort of nearly 10 million people, we identified 17,130 participants diagnosed autistic without an intellectual disability (matched with 171,300 comparison participants), and 6450 participants diagnosed autistic with an intellectual disability (matched with 64,500 comparison participants). The apparent estimates indicated that people diagnosed with autism but not intellectual disability had 1.71 (95% CI: 1.39–2.11) times the mortality rate of people without these diagnoses. People diagnosed with autism and intellectual disability had 2.83 (95% CI: 2.33–3.43) times the mortality rate of people without these diagnoses. Likewise, the apparent reduction in life expectancy for people diagnosed with autism but not intellectual disability was 6.14 years (95% CI: 2.84–9.07) for men and 6.45 years (95% CI: 1.37–11.58 years) for women. The apparent reduction in life expectancy for people diagnosed with autism and intellectual disability was 7.28 years (95% CI: 3.78–10.27) for men and 14.59 years (95% CI: 9.45–19.02 years) for women. However, these findings are likely to be subject to exposure misclassification biases: very few autistic adults and older-adults have been diagnosed, meaning that we could only study a fraction of the total autistic population. Those who have been diagnosed may well be those with greater support needs and more co-occurring health conditions than autistic people on average. Interpretation The findings indicate that there is a group of autistic people who experience premature mortality, which is of significant concern. There is an urgent need for investigation into the reasons behind this. However, our estimates suggest that the widely reported statistic that autistic people live 16-years less on average is likely incorrect. Nine out of 10 autistic people may have been undiagnosed across the time-period studied. Hence, the results of our study do not generalise to all autistic people. Diagnosed autistic adults, and particularly older adults, are likely those with greater-than-average support needs. Therefore, we may have over-estimated the reduction in life expectancy experienced by autistic people on average. The larger reduction in life expectancy for women diagnosed with autism and intellectual disability vs. men may in part reflect disproportionate underdiagnosis of autism and/or intellectual disability in women

Dynamic gains from trade: Does it matter what is imported?

International trade theory provides a solid foundation for reviewing the static gains from trade and the losses brought about from protectionism. Empirical results have also reinforced trade theory by finding a positive and significant relationship between trade growth rates and GDP growth rates. Unfortunately, international trade theory is largely static in nature and, therefore, provides very little indication as to the possible large dynamic effects of trade that have been captured by the empirical studies. One exception has been Richard Baldwin (1992), who incorporates the gains from comparative advantage into the Solow growth model. He argues that regardless of what is traded in the export and import sector, significant medium-run gains from foreign exchange occur in the form of capital accumulation. Joy Mazumdar (1996) asserts that international trade will bestow an immediate income gain, but maintains that medium-run growth depends on trade composition. Medium-run transition in the Solow model is related to the process of capital formation, and the price of capital relative to consumer goods depends critically on whether capital is an import good or the export good. Mazumdar suggests that countries which import consumption goods and export capital goods find it difficult to experience medium-run growth because of increased depreciation expenditure, while countries that import capital and export consumption goods reach an even higher steady state than what Baldwin predicted. This dissertation rigorously tests the hypothesis that international trade composition matters for medium-run growth for 28 selected countries. A trade composition variable is created for each country by using export and import data of both consumption and capital goods. By incorporating this variable into a linear regression equation, several empirical tests are performed. Econometric techniques used in this dissertation include unit root testing, single-equation estimation, simultaneous equation estimation, vector autoregression, cointegration testing, error-correction estimation, and panel data estimation. The empirical results are suggestive, and indicate some support for Mazumdar\u27s qualification

High Skilled Labor Force Brain Drain and Corruption: the Case of Colombia

The country of Colombia has experienced growth in high-skilled brain drain rates and is perceived to be a country with moderately high levels of corruption. This article contributes to the literature by analyzing the effects of high-skilled brain drain by applying a Random Utilization Maximization (RUM) model to explain emigration flows from Colombia using cross-sectional and regional multivariate regression models. Findings indicate that greater transparency of regional institutions reduces emigration flows of the high-skilled working population. The regional multivariate regressions also show that lower corruption of regional institutions mitigates high-skilled brain drain in landlocked regions, but fuels high-skilled brain drain from non-landlocked regions and those regions that share an international border. Policies designed to reduce high-skilled brain drain should be conducted at the regional level depending on the expected net effects that high-skilled brain drain has on the local political and economic institutions

Measuring Immigration’s Effects on Labor Demand: A Reexamination of the Mariel Boatlift

Why do immigration shocks tend to have benign effects on native wages? One reason is that immigrants as consumers contribute to the demand for their services. We model an economy where workers spend their wages on a locally produced good, then test it via a reexamination of the 1980 “Mariel Boatlift” using Wacziarg’s Channel Transmission methodology. Current Population Survey data on workers in 9 different retail labor markets and Survey of Buying Power data on retail spending by consumers in Miami and four comparison cities are used. We find strong evidence that the Mariel Boatlift augmented labor demand

Trade Based Money Laundering in Select Asian Economies: A Comparative Approach Using the Gravity Model

Trade based money laundering (TBML) is a major issue for emerging Asian economies reliant on trade for economic expansion. In this paper, the gravity model is applied to examine how government attitude toward traditional money laundering practices affect the amount of TBML between Thailand, Singapore and Japan for the years 2001-2015. Results reveal that the amount of TBML between Japan, Thailand and Singapore is greater with higher levels of government attitude toward traditional money laundering. Findings can be used to review current anti-money laundering regulations to ensure appropriate enforcement activity to reduce criminal activity and encourage economic growth

Religion and International Trade

Despite interest in the influence of religion on economic activity by early economists like Adam Smith, modern economists have done little research on the subject. In light of the apparent religious fervor in many parts of the global economy, economists' seeming lack of interest in studying how religious cultures enhance or retard the globalization of economic activity is especially surprising. This article makes a contribution toward filling this void by examining how religion affects international trade. Specifically, we examine whether the sharing of religious cultures enables the formation of exchange networks that can overcome the failure or nonexistence of other social and economic institutions necessary for completing complex international transactions. We apply an expanded gravity model of international trade to control for a variety of factors that determine trade, and we use two recently developed regression methods, scaled OLS and nonlinear least squares, to exploit the model to its fullest. We find that the sharing of Buddhist, Confucian, Hindu, Eastern Orthodox Catholic, and Protestant cultures by people in different countries has a significantly positive influence on bilateral trade, all other things equal. The sharing of Roman Catholic culture has a significantly negative influence on bilateral trade, and the sharing of Islamic and Judaic cultures neither promotes nor discourages international exchange. These results suggest that some religious cultures are more conducive than others for forming international trade networks. Copyright 2007 American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Inc..