Women and Migration

A post from PCIJ on women and migration policies that to me was heavy on women, then policies, but not the two together. Hoisted from the comments:

i read your article hoping to find examples of gender neutral policies that lead to relatively more abuse of women’s human rights.

I didnt find any. It seems that the problems stated above are problems that all share (stereotyping, de-skilling, etc.). Moreover, no policy was tagged as the culprit.

Also, the ILO statistics on relative underemployment of women is interesting. But which country is the ILO referring to? Or is this a world average? Furthermore, you didnt explain how gender neutral policies lead to this state of affairs.

The only example i can read is the ban on migration as a safeguard for trafficking. You give the impression that the ban responsible for the abuse in the black market. I am sympathetic to this argument, but how do we know that the alternative — no ban — is better? again, many arguments can be brought to bear to make the case, but i don’t see it in this blog entry.

Equivalent Variation in OFWs

In a very interesting study by the nice folks at Scalabrini Migration Center….

Median Monthly salary required to make Migrants Stay in the country lies in 20,000 to 29,999 thousand range.

The respondents of the survey attendees of the POEA’s predeparture orientation seminar. 83% female and half are single; median is 30 to 34 years old; 60% from Luzon and almost half have college degrees (27% have HS or less). The survey was done in 2004.

Irritated

I’m irritated that a number of papers have been written about Philippine migrant workers. Maybe there is something left to be written. Anything. One interesting thing i’ve learned today: Regional rainfall can be an instrument for for region-level income. The R2 is horrible, but the F-test is good.

Brain Gain?

This is from Docquier and Rappaport (World Bank Policy Paper in 2004), who get it from Beine et al (2003). The data above is from 1999.

1) The Philippines is on the wrong side of this curve. why?

2) What is with Indonesia, China, Pakistan; or even more to the point, Guatemala and Honduras? In contrast to the latter two, we have Dominican Republic and Nicaragua. Why? South Korea was a surprise.

3) It seems then that the positive effects of ‘brain drain’ is in fact true, and its true for some large developing countries with relatively small emigration rates.

History Paper on Entrepreneurship

Tomorrow, i’ll seek out Greg Clark during his office hour to discuss my Econ 210a paper. He is busy (rightfully) promoting his new best-seller “A Farewell to Alms“.The class is basically economic history, with a focus on economic growth. One of the biggest puzzles in economic history and growth is the origin and source of technological advance.In the class, we have to write a ‘paper’ and i have chosen to focus on entrepreneurship and her [i've decided to call an enterpreneur 'her'] role in economic growth and change. Recently, there has been a burgeoning literature on entrepreneurship, and currently i’m focused on the work of Will Baumol.I settled on this, because my dissertation discussion partner suggested that i focus on research that is related to my current interests. At this point, i’m an IO/Trade person who is interested in multi-product firms and industry dynamics. Current models that i’ve been exposed to implicitly integrate entrepreneurship. Active entry and exit of firms, and entry and exit into product markets are tell-tale evidence of entrepreneurial activity, together with the introduction of new (presumably, but not necessarily) higher quality goods.So, in writing this paper, i hope to shoot two birds with one stone and put them together in a dissertation. In subsequent posts, i hope to write my paper in parts.On an unrelated note, I might as well add here that i hope that Prof. Peri will successfully launch his International Migration Seminar in the Winter Quarter. This is another International Economics/Labor/Macroeconomics topic i’m interested in.