International Migration in the Atlantic Economy, 1850-1940

This chapter focuses on the economic analysis of what has been called the age of mass migration, 1850 to 1913, and its aftermath up to 1940. This has captured the interest of generations of economic historians and is still a highly active area of research. Here we concentrate on migration from Europe to the New World as this is where the bulk of the literature lies. We provide an overview of this literature focusing on key topics: the determinants of migration, the development of immigration policy, immigrant selection and assimilation, and the economic effects of mass migration as well as its legacy through to the present day. We explain how what were once orthodoxies have been revisited and revised, and how changes in our understanding have been influenced by advances in methodology, which in turn have been made possible by the availability of new and more comprehensive data. Despite these advances some issues remain contested or unresolved and, true to cliometric tradition, we conclude by calling for more research

Premium copayments and the trade-off between wages and employer-provided health insurance.

This paper estimates the trade-off between salary and health insurance costs using data on Illinois school teachers between 1991 and 2008 that allow us to address several common empirical challenges in this literature. Teachers paid about 17 percent of the cost of individual health insurance and about 46 percent of the cost of their family members' plans through premium contributions, but we find no evidence that teachers' salaries respond to changes in insurance costs. Consistent with a higher willingness to pay for insurance, we find that premium contributions are higher in districts that employ a higher-tenured workforce. We find no evidence that school districts respond to higher health insurance costs by reducing the number of teachers

Do 'Skills Beget Skills'? Evidence on the Effect of Kindergarten Entrance Age on the Evolution of Cognitive and Non-cognitive Skill Gaps in Childhood

We use exogenous variation in the skills that children have at the beginning of kindergarten to measure the extent to which “skills beget skills” in this context. Children who are relatively older when they begin kindergarten score higher on measures of cognitive and noncognitive achievement at the beginning of kindergarten. Their scores on cognitive assessments grow faster during kindergarten and first grade. However, after first grade the scores of younger entrants catch up. We find no evidence that the growth in non-cognitive measures differs between older and younger entrants. Finally, we provide evidence suggesting that schools are not the cause of the younger students’ faster growth after first grade

Mental health parity: implications for the state of Florida

The federal Mental Health Parity Act of 1996 required insurers to offer the same benefits for mental disorders and substance abuse as they provide for physical disorders and includes parity for any annual or lifetime limitations and restrictions placed upon such coverage. To date, twenty-one states across the nation have enacted parity laws for mental health and/or substance abuse benefits. This paper summarizes the essential issues facing the state of Florida in the development of state mental health parity legislation, including an examination of the experiences of other states, a look at potential benefits, and a discussion of the impact of managed care and insurance benefit design on the costs of parity for mental health benefits in Florida

Mental health parity: National and state perspectives 2000: A report to the Florida Legislature

By failing to appropriately treat adults and children with severe mental illness, we incur enormous social costs through payments for disability benefits (Medicaid, SSI, SSDI), increased medical expenses, accidents and suicides, avoidable criminal justice proceedings, lost productivity, and increased need for homeless shelters and services. People who are underinsured are forced by arbitrary caps and limits to increasingly rely on the public sector. By providing parity for mental health, Florida will bring mental health into the mainstream of health care and become a leader in dispelling the prejudice that surrounds treatment of persons with severe mental illness

IS AIDS A RATIONAL DISEASE? SOME EVIDENCE FROM HOUSEHOLD DATA

The paper discusses some standard models of the spread of HIV such as the "actuarial" model and the "psychological" model. We introduce an "economic" model which is based on the assumption that people are rational utility-maximizers. The appropriateness of applying an economic model to the spread of a disease is discussed. Available evidence indicates that individuals respond rationally to social and economic stimuli when it comes to taking risks. The article shows how viewing AIDS as a rational disease enriches our understanding of the behavioural underpinnings of the spread of HIV. Copyright 2005 Economic Society of South Africa.