Immigration and growth in an ageing economy

This paper argues that immigration can help to alleviate the burden ageing presents for the welfare states of most Western Economies. We develop a macroeconomic framework which deals with the impact of both ageing and immigration on economic growth. This is combined with a detailed model of the labour market, to include the interaction with lowskilled unemployment. The empirical relevance of some crucial model assumptions is shown to hold for the Netherlands, 1973 – 2007. The conclusions are that immigration will help to alleviate the ageing problem, as long as the immigrants will be able to participate in the labour force at least as much as the native population. Moreover, the better educated the immigrants are or become, the higher their contribution to growth will be.ageing population, immigration, unemployment, skills

Wage divergence and unemployment: the impact of insider power and training costs

The US labour market is characterized by a high skill wage mark-up and low unemployment, while the German labour market has a low skill wage mark-up and a high, mainly unskilled unemployment rate. This paper adds an innovative labour supply explanation to the discussion how these distinct labour market equilibria could arise. Skill-biased technological change induces training needs for the employees willing to work in the skilled labour market and increases relative skill demand. In a simple general equilibrium model, this paper shows that skilled insiders in the USA enjoy higher rents and increase the skilled wage mark-up stronger than in Germany in the wake of skill-biased technological change. The reason is that the unskilled outsiders in the USA do not possess a powerful credible threat to improve their position. This is a consequence from higher training and education costs in the USA for unskilled employees and unemployed. In Germany, the lower skill wage mark-up leads to an increased relative skill demand which is not matched by the skill supply and therefore mis-match unemployment arises. --Mis-match unemployment,training costs,skill biased technological change,Labour supply

Human capital creates insider power

This paper demonstrates that insiders can erect barriers to entry and skim rents by sinking costs in human capital when labour markets are otherwise perfectly contestable. The sunk costs nature of human capital investments may result from the need to satisfy ever increasing specialised skill requirements in our society. When outsiders can not threat with market entry, insiders invest inefficiently in human capital such that their rent share is maximized. This inefficiency results from the hold-up problem that arises since workers are not residual claimants of the human capital rents. On the other hand, since insiders´ investments are negatively correlated with the number of workers, this may lead to higher than efficient investments nevertheless. When outsiders have an effective entry threat, insiders are forced to accept higher employment of outsiders and share the reduced rents with them. However, full employment is not necessarily reached and in any case investments are higher and social rent is lower than optimal. --Insider-Outsider,Human Capital,Rents,Unemployment,Hold-Up

How Did Ontario Pulp and Paper Producers Respond to Effluent Regulations, 1985-89?

This paper explores the effects of effluent regulatory activity on firm behavior in the pulp and paper industry in Ontario. The model uses instrumental variables to attempt to distinguish between that correlation between emission limits and emissions coming from regulatory capture and that coming from true influence on the part of the regulator. The model also attempts to identify the response channels on the part of the firms: data are available on reported investments in abatement capital and on firms' water consumption, correlated with output. Estimation results suggest that total suspended solids (TSS) limits were more effective than biological oxygen demand (BOD) limits in controlling emissions. Firm responses to TSS limits were in part through modulating output and these responses lowered emissions. In contrast, firms reported investing in abatement technology in response to reductions in BOD limits, but these reported investments had no discernible impact on emissions. Firm responses to court summons, fines, and inquiries were impossible to detect. Possible causes of these results are that penalties for effluent discharge infractions in Ontario during the period studied were too light to influence firm behavior measurably, and that emission limits are set high enough not to be binding for most firms in the sample. Cet article explore les effets de la réglementation des émissions de polluants sur les firmes de l'industrie ontarienne des pâtes et papier. Le modèle utilise des variables instrumentales pour faire la distinction entre les effets liés à la capture de l'agence de réglementation et des effets vraiment propres à l'action du régulateur. Le modèle cherche également à identifier les moyens utilisés par les entreprises pour faire face à la réglementation : des données sont disponibles pour les dépenses en équipement anti-pollution des entreprises et sur la quantité d'eau consommée. Les résultats tendent à démontrer que le contrôle des émissions polluantes se ferait de façon plus efficace par l'imposition d'une limite sur les rejets de matières en suspension (MES) que par une limite sur la demande biochimique en oxygène. Les effets constatés sur la firme d'une limite sur les MES, proviendraient en partie d'une modification dans la production, qui aurait pour effet de diminuer les émissions. Par contre, les investissements en équipement anti-pollution, consentis pour atteindre les objectifs de réduction de DBO, n'ont eu aucun effet sur les émissions. L'impact des poursuites légales, des amendes et des enquêtes est impossible à détecter. Parmi les causes possibles de ces résultats, notons que les sanctions imposées par l'Ontario aux entreprises lors d'une infraction sur l'émission de polluant, durant la période d'étude, étaient trop faibles pour influencer de façon mesurable le comportement des entreprises. Une autre cause pourrait être le fait que les limites d'émissions sont assez élevées pour ne pas être contraignantes pour la plupart des firmes de l'échantillon.Environment, Regulation, Pulp and Paper, Environnement, réglementation, pâtes et papier

Immigration can alleviate the ageing problem

This paper analyses the way immigration can help to alleviate the burden ageing presents for the welfare states of most Western Economies. We develop a macroeconomic framework which deals with the impact of both ageing and immigration on economic growth. This is combined with a detailed model of the labour market, to include the interaction with unemployment, while distinguishing between low- and high-skilled labour. The empirical relevance of some crucial model assumptions are shown to hold for the Netherlands, 1973 – 2005. The conclusions are that immigration will help to alleviate the ageing problem, as long as the immigrants will be able to find work. Moreover, the better educated the immigrants are or become, the higher their contribution to growth will be.macroeconomics ;

Accurate modeling approach for the structural comparison between monolayer polymer tubes and single-walled nanotubes

In a recent computational study, we found highly structured ground states for coarse-grained polymers adsorbed to ultrathin nanowires in a certain model parameter region. Those tubelike configurations show, even at a first glance, exciting morphological similarities to known atomistic nanotubes such as single-walled carbon nanotubes. In order to explain those similarities in a systematic way, we performed additional detailed and extensive simulations of coarse-grained polymer models with various parameter settings. We show this here and explain why standard geometrical models for atomistic nanotubes are not suited to interpret the results of those studies. In fact, the general structural behavior of polymer nanotubes, as well as specific previous observations, can only be explained by applying recently developed polyhedral tube models.Comment: Proceedings of the 24th Workshop on Recent Developments in Computer Simulation Studies in Condensed Matter Physics, Feb 21-25, 2011, Athens, Georgia, US

The regularity of the boundary of a multidimensional aggregation patch

Let $d \geq 2$ and let $N(y)$ be the fundamental solution of the Laplace equation in $R^d$ We consider the aggregation equation $$\frac{\partial \rho}{\partial t} + \operatorname{div}(\rho v) =0, v = -\nabla N * \rho$$ with initial data $\rho(x,0) = \chi_{D_0}$, where $\chi_{D_0}$ is the indicator function of a bounded domain $D_0 \subset R^d.$ We now fix $0 < \gamma < 1$ and take $D_0$ to be a bounded $C^{1+\gamma}$ domain (a domain with smooth boundary of class $C^{1+\gamma}$). Then we have Theorem: If $D_0$ is a $C^{1 + \gamma}$ domain, then the initial value problem above has a solution given by $$\rho(x,t) = \frac{1}{1 -t} \chi_{D_t}(x), \quad x \in R^d, \quad 0 \le t < 1$$ where $D_t$ is a $C^{1 + \gamma}$ domain for all $0 \leq t < 1$

Health, labour productivity and growth

Under the standard neo-classical growth framework, conditional convergence studies assume that a country with a higher initial human capital among others \'performs\' better. Nevertheless the growth implications of health, another component of human capital, compared to education, have not been investigated thoroughly within the optimum growth framework yet. The aim of this study is to show rigorously the positive association between per capita income and health status of an economy and thereby provide a theoretical background for using \'health\' variables in conditional convergence analyses. This positive relationship between health and per capita output is first shown in the standard neo-classical growth framework where the health status is exogenously given. Endogenising health then enables us to analyse the impact of optimal expenditure on health care on steady state growth and transition dynamics