Forced Migration and Professionalism1

The complexity of forced migration calls for significant expertise with regard to prevention, responses and solutions. This article describes efforts since the early 1980s to professionalize the field. Professional development requires, at a minimum, that three things be in place: training; standards to govern professional competence; and a process for evaluation and improvement. Professional development must take into account the increasing complexity of humanitarian crises; changing notions of sovereinty that permit new solutions; changing mandates and responsibilities of organizations concerned with forced migration; and technological and communications innovations that enable new approaches to forced migration and professional training.     

Real Exchange Rates in Transition Countries

This paper discusses the ways in which real exchange rate changes have affected macroeconomic and structural developments in transition economies. More specifically, it deals with four issues: it analyzes the real exchange rate dynamics in transition economies; it provides a comparative evaluation of the exchange rate regimes adopted by transition countries; it focuses on the link between exchange rate movements and financial crises; and it discusses the applicability of the Balassa–Samuelson hypothesis to transition economies.     

Forced Migration and HIV/AIDS Risks in Angola

This study examines HIV/AIDS-related knowledge, attitudes, and behaviour of forced migrants in Luanda, Angola by comparing them with those of voluntary migrants and long-time city residents. The study uses data from a survey of 1081 men and women conducted in 2004 in two suburban municipalities of Luanda. One of the municipalities has a large share and the other a small share of the forced migrant population. The analysis detects differences between forced migrants and the other groups in HIV/AIDS-related knowledge and attitudes, but these differences are explained away by the demographic characteristics and socio-economic disadvantages of forced migrants. With respect to behaviour, we find that regardless of other characteristics forced migrant men are more likely to engage in practices that may lead to increased HIV risks than long-time male city dwellers. The differences between forced and voluntary male migrants show the same tendency but are not statistically significant. While women overall are less likely to engage in potentially risky practices than men, differences among women in the three migration-status groups are not as pronounced as among men.     

Forced Migration and Changing Livelihoods in the Brazilian Amazon

Forced migration due to development projects or environmental change impacts livelihoods, as affected households are faced with new—and often less favorable—environmental, social, and economic conditions. This article examines changing livelihood strategies among a population of rural agricultural households displaced by the Belo Monte Dam in the Brazilian Amazon. Using longitudinal data, I find that many households used compensation payments to concentrate income generation efforts on the most lucrative strategies—cacao and cattle production and business or rental income. Poorer households and those that received the least compensation were more likely to continue relying on agricultural wage labor—a less desirable income source associated with not owning land or with persons needing to supplement income with additional work as a day laborer. Results also indicate that the amount of compensation received by most households was sufficient to enable them to make productive investments beyond attaining replacement land and housing. Many households invested in assets such as agricultural infrastructure, cattle, rental houses, or tractors—all of which directly contribute to future income. Displacement compensation, similar to remittances or conditional cash transfers, can therefore act as an important infusion of capital to promote socioeconomic development and poverty reduction.     

Reforms of Tax Systems in Transition Countries

In the 15 years since the beginning of their transformation reforms, nearly all 27 post-socialist countries have adopted the three main taxes typical for a market economy, namely, personal income tax, corporate income tax, and value-added tax. However, there is great diversity in the detailed solutions, rates, deductions, allowances, and tax bases applied to taxes in these countries. Nevertheless, the basic prerequisite for the further enhancement of these systems has been met. In recent years, it has been possible to observe a clear tendency to broaden tax bases and reduce the top income tax rates. In spite of this, serious problems persist, as regards further improvement of the functioning of the system, increasing its transparency and homogeneity, and limiting implementation problems. For some countries, this is a very serious problem, particularly in connection with the so-called quasi-tax activity in the area of energy resources and the size of the informal economy. The paper also provides a short comparative analysis of the size of public revenues in a historical context – from the beginning of the transformation process to the beginning of the current millennium.     

Financial Intermediation Modernization in Countries with Transition Economy

During the modern phase of economic reforms directed at the establishment of market economy, many countries with transition economies face the challenge of solving the issue of formation and rational usage of internal sources of financing the real sector of the economy, as well as attracting considerable volume of direct foreign investment. In general, financial market imperfections hold back innovation and growth, and that public policy can complement financial markets. Therefore, the most relevant issue at the present time is the formation of attendant and complex supervision institutions, as well as an exigency of innovative economy governance as mainframe principles for further banking system elaboration and financial sector development in general. We have taken Armenia as a case study for transition economy as far as Armenia is currently in the stage of capital market development through integration into international financial markets.      

Smoking Prevalence and Antismoking Regulations in Transition Countries

As a number of new nations emerged in the early nineties, there has been a spurt in regulatory initiatives in transition countries toward nation building and socio-economic reforms. A key prerequisite to policy changes is an understanding of the related patterns and policies. This paper provides an overview of the smoking trends in transition nations, broken by gender and age, and the antismoking policies in place. In particular, four different types of non-price policies are studied. Comparisons with the rest of the world show that transition countries do not fare badly in terms of implementing antismoking policies and are, in fact, better in some cases than other countries. However, greater smoking prevalence for some population subgroups in transition nations suggests that either some other socio-economic factors influencing smoking prevalence might be at play or there might be some enforcement issues with the policies in place.     

Why Transition Countries May Specialize in Low-Quality Production

Politicians and economists of transition countries fear a low-quality trap for their economies. We present a model of international trade with two countries and two qualities of goods model where high-quality production exhibits economies of scale and low-quality production does not. Depending on transaction costs, the low-quality good will be produced either in the low-wage economy (i.e., the transition country) only or it will not be traded at all. Regarding the high-quality good, we discuss three potential reasons why transition countries may be trapped in the production of low quality when economies of scale in production prevail: (a) international trade policy (i.e., GATT / WTO); (b) external economies due to quality uncertainty; (c) external economies due to demand effects (big push). All reasons favor incumbents over entrants and thus lead to a low-quality trap for transition economies due to the existence of incumbents located in industrialized countries.     

The Impact of Temporary Migration on Source Countries

We quantify the home country effects of different types of temporary and permanent migration patterns using a global integrated model for three developing countries. Our results suggest that migration (whether permanent or temporary) is beneficial for income as well as for poverty reduction in the home countries as it raises remittances, labor productivity, trade, and foreign direct investment and it provides incentives for human capital accumulation. These channels offset the negative impact of “brain drain.” In the simulations, temporary migration programs yield better outcomes than permanent migration due to the productivity gains induced in the home countries by returning migrants.     

阿拉伯国家转型及其走势

埃及军方推翻穆兄会政权,局势仍难以稳定;叙利亚化武危机化解,但政治解决步履艰难;巴、以重启和谈,取得突破仍困难重重;美、伊关系松动,伊核谈判取得阶段性成果;美国在中东地区的主导能力下降;阿拉伯国家转型之路漫长而艰难;伊斯兰势力崛起受挫。     

The Role of Progress Factors Explaining Inefficiencies in Transition Countries

This paper examines whether progress in transition has a significant effect on the economic efficiency for 24 transition countries from 1990 to 2006. It uses nine progress factors to analyze the role of the progress factors to explain inefficiencies. It also questions the effect of the transition countries that recently joined the European Union on efficiency. The results suggest that the average efficiency scores for EU-N10 are much higher than the average efficiency scores for SEE/CIS. The scores increase over time for both groups of transition countries. Reforms also contribute to efficiency in general.     

From Refugees to Forced Migration: The UNHCR and Human Security1

Within UNHCR, there has been a shift in the emphasis on the meaning of protection. Protection of refugees is now primarily defined as security of refugees and refugee operations rather than in terms of the legal asylum process. The article examines the significance of UNHCR placing the refugee issue within both the larger context of forced migration as well as within the context of human security. The paper clarifies and documents a current and general focus of forced migration that includes the internally displaced as well as refugees and offers a framework for comprehending and dealing with the refugee problem that has shifted focus to the security dimension.     

Some Structural Effects of Migration on Receiving and Sending Countries

Traditionally, the question of migration has been compartmentalized analytically between, on the one hand, the causes of international migration which in the main have been studied by economists and geographers and, on the other hand, the consequences of migration primarily on the receiving countries, which has mostly been an area of concern for sociologists, demographers and geographers who have looked into theories and processes of settlement/integration. The twain rarely met. As a consequence, for heuristic purposes a separation based on discipline, geographical areas and objects of study has taken place, an approach challenged recently by some scholars. This article brings together the threads of international migration in its causes and consequences affecting both sending and receiving countries as well as the migrants. The close interaction between causes and consequences is enhanced by the role of migrants themselves. Indeed, migrants are not only objects whose moves are deterministically conditioned by structural factors, they are social actors who formulate their own strategies and life projects within given settings and conflicts in their society of origin and society of reception, which they in turn contribute to modify.     

The Push and Pull Factors Contributing Towards Asylum Migration from Developing Countries to Developed Countries Since 2000

In the early 2000s, asylum seekers went primarily to destinations their countries had historical relationships, including former colonial ties, common languages and ethnic networks. Since the mid-2000s, there has been a shift towards asylum seekers arriving in destinations without such relationships. In this study, we apply spatial interaction models to understand the factors contributing to recent asylum migration from developing countries to developed countries from 2001 to 2015. We find that the push factors of political terror, civil rights violation and poverty do not result in increased asylum migration to developed countries. Instead, they act to reduce the number of asylum seekers. We also find that interactions between a range of push factors are important for understanding the movements and that immigration policies can have considerable effects on the destination choices of asylum seekers.     

Determinants of Bank Performance in Transition Countries: A Data Envelopment Analysis

We analyze what drives bank efficiency in the transition countries of Central Europe and compare the results with those for the United States. This paper is one of the few that use data envelopment analysis for the computation of efficiency scores in transition countries, and, to our knowledge, it is the first to explore systematically how different specifications of data envelopment analysis affect the results. Our findings corroborate the common wisdom that foreign-owned banks operating in transition countries are more efficient than domestic banks. While in the United States large banks are in general more efficient, the result for transition countries depends on the design of data envelopment analysis.     

Transatlantic Roundtable on High–skilled Migration and Sending Countries Issues

Globalization and the advent of the knowledge economy have created a new context where there is a greater demand for the highly skilled, especially in the information technology (IT) industry. High–skilled migration has become increasingly more complex, even if in recent years the term "brain drain" has become a generic reference to "high–skilled migration" of all types. It has also become clear that brain mobility does not automatically translate into "brain drain", and that impacts vary by the types of skills held by migrants.
The meeting demonstrated that while much is known about high–skilled migration and its effects on source countries, there is also a great deal yet to be learned in a dynamic environment. Many participants deplored the lack of reliable data, which makes it difficult to know what is really going on and to establish appropriate policies. Clearly, there are an array of policies that can offset possible adverse effects of skilled mobility and even leverage the flow into positive outcomes for source countries. A key element is improvement of the population's general level of education. Low levels of skills keep average labour productivity and wages low and therefore retard development. Long–term strategies to promote economic growth are needed to enable developing countries to retain and draw back their highly skilled and address the negative effects of the brain drain. Migrants themselves can play an important role through their remittances, diaspora networks, and own willingness to return – at least temporarily — to share their skills and contribute to economic progress. Finally, destination countries can facilitate the process through policies that promote circulation of highly skilled migrants.     

War and Forced Migration in the Indian Ocean: The US Military Base at Diego Garcia

Between 1967 and 1973, the indigenous people of the Indian Ocean's Chagos Archipelago were forcibly displaced from their homelands so the US Government could construct a strategic military base on the island of Diego Garcia. The people of Diego Garcia and the rest of the Chagos Archipelago now live in poverty in the island nations of Mauritius and Seychelles, nearly 2,000 kilometres from their homes. Analysing formerly classified government documents, this paper demonstrates how between the end of World War II and the final removals in 1973, the US Government planned, ordered, financed, helped orchestrate, and participated in the expulsion of the exiled people, known as Chagossians or Ilois. While some have detailed the role the British Government played in the removals, this paper clarifies how the US Government bears primary responsibility for the expulsion. Ultimately the creation of the base at Diego Garcia and the expulsion of the Chagossians reveal much about how the United States has exercised its political, economic, and military will on the world since World War II. The paper explains the significance of Diego Garcia and the expulsion of the Chagossians to post‐war US foreign relations, incorporating comparative analyses of other forced migrations caused by the construction of US military facilities, including those in the Marshall Islands; Thule, Greenland; Okinawa, Japan; and Vieques, Puerto Rico.