NAFTA and the Mobility of Highly Skilled Workers: The Case of Canadian Nurses

This article examines the impact of trade treaties on health professionals' international mobility. It presents a case study of the impact of labour mobility clauses in trade agreements on the Canadian nursing labour market. It provides statistical evidence on the impact of NAFTA's Chapter 16 on the cross-border movement of Canadian nurses in the 1990s. We observed that an increasingly large number of Canadian nurses went to work in the United States using the NAFTA facilitation mechanism but that this growth could not be attributed to the trade agreement alone; domestic labour market conditions are key to understanding this cross-border movement. The article concludes that trade treaties and international migration of health personnel do not offer simple solutions to health personnel shortages, but can pose a danger to precarious health systems in developing countries.labour mobility, NAFTA, nurses, International Relations/Trade, Labor and Human Capital,

Uninformed Winners Under Adverse Selection

This paper presents a static model of a market for a quality-differentiated good. In one version quality is observable, in the other it is not. It is shown that some agents who are uninformed when quality is unobservable may have higher utility than they do when it is observable. This is more likely to happen when goods of intermediate quality are scarce.Adverse selection, uninformed agents

Humanitarian Relief and Civil Conflict

We examine the effects of famine relief efforts (food aid) in regions undergoing civil war. In our model, warlords seize a fraction of all aid entering the region. How much they loot affects their choice of army size; therefore the manner in which aid is delivered influences warfare. We identify a delivery plan for aid which minimizes total recruitment in equilibrium.Humanitarian aid, food aid, civil war, warlords, famine

Warlords, Famine and Food Aid: Who Fights, Who Starves?

We examine the effects of famine relief efforts (food aid) in regions undergoing civil war. In our model, warlords seize a fraction of all aid and use it to feed soldiers. They hire their troops within a population of farmers heterogeneous in skills. We determine the equilibrium distribution of labor in this environment and study how the existence and allocation strategies of a benevolent food aid agency affect this equilibrium. Our model allows us to precisely predict who will fight and who will work in every circumstance.Food aid, civil war, warlords, famine

Addressing the Food Aid Curse

In this paper, we build a model of agrarian economies in which a kleptocratic government taxes farmers to maximize its life-time utility. The model is a dynamic general equilibrium model in which the subsistence of farmers requires a minimum level of consumption. We analyze the effect that a benevolent food aid agency can have in such an environment. If it expects the food aid agency to intervene, the kleptocratic government will starve its farmers, in a clear case of the Samaritan's dilemma. We show that the likelihood of man-made famines, however, can be greatly reduced if the food aid agency intervenes with probability slightly lower than one. No aid agency devoted to saving lives, however, can commit to such policy. We propose a solution to this food aid curse.Food aid, famines, commitment

A New Generation of Cool White Dwarf Atmosphere Models Using Ab Initio Calculations

Due to their high photospheric density, cool helium-rich white dwarfs (particularly DZ, DQpec and ultracool) are often poorly described by current atmosphere models. As part of our ongoing efforts to design atmosphere models suitable for all cool white dwarfs, we investigate how the ionization ratio of heavy elements and the H$_2$-He collision-induced absorption (CIA) spectrum are altered under fluid-like densities. For the conditions encountered at the photosphere of cool helium-rich white dwarfs, our ab initio calculations show that the ionization of most metals is inhibited and that the H$_2$-He CIA spectrum is significantly distorted for densities higher than 0.1 g/cm$^3$.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, submitted for publication in the proceedings of the 20th European Workshop on White Dwarf

Practices

We examine an economy where professionals provide services to clients and where a professional can sell his practice to another. Professionals vary in quality, and clients in their need (or willingness-to-pay) for high-quality service. efficiency is measured as the number of matches between high-quality professionals and high-need clients. However, agent types are unobservable a priori. We find that trade in practices can facilitate the transmission of information about agent types; sometimes full efficiency is achieved. In cases where it is not, a tax on the sale of practices (based on the seller's age) can be used to achieve full efficiency. In addition, a ceiling on the price of services can be used to adjust the distribution of surplus between clients and professionals, while preserving efficiency.signaling, professional services, practices, goodwill

Pressure Distortion of the H2_2-He Collision-Induced Absorption at the Photosphere of Cool White Dwarf Stars

Collision-induced absorption (CIA) from molecular hydrogen is a dominant opacity source in the atmosphere of cool white dwarfs. It results in a significant flux depletion in the near-IR and IR parts of their spectra. Because of the extreme conditions of helium-rich atmospheres (where the density can be as high as a few g/cm$^3$), this opacity source is expected to undergo strong pressure distortion and the currently used opacities have not been validated at such extreme conditions. To check the distortion of the CIA opacity we applied state-of-the-art ab initio methods of computational quantum chemistry to simulate the CIA opacity at high densities. The results show that the CIA profiles are significantly distorted above densities of $0.1\,{\rm g/cm}^3$ in a way that is not captured by the existing models. The roto-translational band is enhanced and shifted to higher frequencies as an effect of the decrease of the interatomic separation of the H$_2$ molecule. The vibrational band is blueward shifted and split into $Q_R$ and $Q_P$ branches, separated by a pronounced interference dip. Its intensity is also substantially reduced. The distortions result in a shift of the maximum of the absorption from $2.3\,\mu{\rm m}$ to $3-7 \mu{\rm m}$, which could potentially explain the spectra of some very cool, helium-rich white dwarfs.Comment: 12 pages, 13 figures. Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa

Globalization and the (Mis)Governance of Nations

We analyze whether or not the globalization of capital, `disciplines' governments and improves gov- ernance. We demonstrate that globalization a ects governance, by increasing a country's vulnerability to sudden capital ight. This increased threat of capital ight can discipline governments and improve governance and welfare by placing countries in a `golden straitjacket'. However, globalization may also overdiscipline' governments { resulting in a perverse impact on governmental incentives that catalyzes mis)governance. Accordingly, the paper suggests a novel (and quali ed) role for capital controls. Finally, we provide some suggestive evidence consistent with the predictions from our theoretical framework.Globalization, Governance; Capital Flight; Capital Controls, Discipline.