The microeconomic determinants of emigration and return migration of the best and brightest: evidence from the Pacific

A unique survey which tracks worldwide the best and brightest academic performers from three Pacific countries is used to assess the extent of emigration and return migration among the very highly skilled, and to analyze, at the microeconomic level, the determinants of these migration choices. Although we estimate that the income gains from migration are very large, not everyone migrates and many return. Within this group of highly skilled individuals the emigration decision is found to be most strongly associated with preference variables such as risk aversion, patience, and choice of subjects in secondary school, and not strongly linked to either liquidity constraints or to the gain in income to be had from migrating. Likewise, the decision to return is strongly linked to family and lifestyle reasons, rather than to the income opportunities in different countries. Overall the data show a relatively limited role for income maximization in distinguishing migration propensities among the very highly skilled, and a need to pay more attention to other components of the utility maximization decision

The Prudence of Mexican Consumers

The ENIGH household surveys are used to investigate the strength of the precautionary motive in Mexico, using pseudo-panel methods to obtain estimates of the coefficient of relative prudence for Mexican consumers. The method provided accounts for the aggregation problems arising from unequally-spaced surveys. The low levels of prudence found can help explain why consumers had insufficient savings to smooth consumption during the peso crisis. Differences in prudence may also explain the low household savings rates in Mexico compared to the high savings rates in East Asian countries such as Taiwan.prudence, pseudo-panel, aggregation

A profile of the world's young developing country migrants

The paper uses individual level census and household survey data to present a rich profile of the young developing migrants around the world. Youth are found to comprise a large share of all migrants, particularly in migration to other developing countries, with the probability of migration peaking in the late teens or early twenties. The paper examines in detail the age and gender composition of migrants, whether young migrants move alone or with a parent or spouse, their participation in schooling and work in the destination country, the types of jobs they do, and the age of return migration. The results suggest a high degree of commonality in the youth migrant experience across a number of destination countries. In particular, developing country youth tend to work in similar occupations all around the world, and are more concentrated in these occupations than older migrants or native youth. Nevertheless, there is also considerable heterogeneity among youth migrants: 29 percent of 18 to 24 year olds are attending school in their destination country, but another 29 percent are not working or in school. This illustrates both the potential of migration for building human capital, and the fear that lack of integration prevents it from being used.Population Policies,Youth and Governance,Adolescent Health,Gender and Development,Population&Development

Paper walls are easier to tear down : passport costs and legal barriers to emigration

Increased attention to the development potential of international migration has led to calls for greater global cooperation and for industrial countries to consider temporary worker programs and other options for increasing the number of immigrants admitted. But less attention has been devoted to policies that migrant-sending countries pursue that impact on the ability of people to emigrate under the existing system. This paper documents the existence and impact of two such policies: passport costs and legal restrictions on emigration. New data collected on passport costs in 127 countries reveals enormous variation in the cost of a passport from one country to the next. One in every 10 countries in the sample is found to have passport costs exceeding 10 percent of annual per capita income. High passport costs are found to be associated with poor governance, especially in terms of the quality of the bureaucracy, and with lower levels of migration. Countries that place legal restrictions on the rights of women to emigrate are also found to have lower migration rates than countries with similar income and population levels. These findings suggest there is scope for some developing countries to receive greater benefits from migration by tearing down the paper walls they place around their own citizens.Governance Indicators,Economic Theory&Research,Country Strategy&Performance,Human Migrations&Resettlements,Voluntary and Involuntary Resettlement

Enhancement of the thermal expansion of organic charge transfer salts by strong electronic correlations

Organic charge transfer salts exhibit thermal expansion anomalies similar to those found in other strongly correlated electron systems. The thermal expansion can be anisotropic and have a non-monotonic temperature dependence. We show how these anomalies can arise from electronic effects and be significantly enhanced, particularly at temperatures below 100 K, by strong electronic correlations. For the relevant Hubbard model the thermal expansion is related to the dependence of the entropy on the parameters ($t$, $t'$, and $U$) in the Hamiltonian or the temperature dependence of bond orders and double occupancy. The latter are calculated on finite lattices with the Finite Temperature Lanczos Method. Although many features seen in experimental data, in both the metallic and Mott insulating phase, are described qualitatively, the calculated magnitude of the thermal expansion is smaller than that observed experimentally.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figure

Instability of combined gravity-inertial-Rossby waves in atmospheres and oceans

The properties of the instability of combined gravity-inertial-Rossby waves on a β-plane are investigated. The wave-energy exchange equation shows that there is an exchange of energy with the background stratified medium. The energy source driving the instability lies in the background enthalpy released by the gravitational buoyancy force. <br><br> It is shown that if the phase speed of the westward propagating low frequency-long wavelength Rossby wave exceeds the Poincaré-Kelvin (or "equivalent" shallow water) wave speed, instability arises from the merging of Rossby and Poincaré modes. There are two key parameters in this instability condition; namely, the equatorial/rotational Mach (or Froude) number <I>M</I> and the latitude &theta;₀ of the β-plane. In general waves equatorward of a critical latitude for given <I>M</I> can be driven unstable, with corresponding growth rates of the order of a day or so. Although these conclusions may only be safely drawn for short wavelengths corresponding to a JWKB wave packet propagating internally and located far from boundaries, nevertheless such a local instability may play a significant role in atmosphere-ocean dynamics

Quasiequational Theories of Flat Algebras

We prove that finite flat digraph algebras and, more generally, finite compatible flat algebras satisfying a certain condition are finitely q-based (possess a finite basis for their quasiequations). We also exhibit an example of a twelve-element compatible flat algebra that is not finitely q-based

Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS)

The DSN (Deep Space Network) mission support requirements for the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) are summarized. The TDRSS consists of four identical satellites in geosynchronous orbits (35,800 km) and a dedicated ground station. The payload of each satellite is a telecommunications service system that relays communication signals between low earth-orbiting user spacecraft and the TDRSS ground terminal. Mission objectives are outlined and the DSN support requirements are defined through the presentation of tables and narratives describing the spacecraft flight profile; DSN support coverage; frequency assignments; support parameters for telemetry, command and support systems; and tracking support responsibility