The H-1B visa: Free market solutions for business and labor

The H-1B visa program opened the US information technology labor market to temporary, skilled immigrant labor. But the immigrant worker was bound to a specific employer for the duration of the visa. The non-portability of the H-1B visa has benefitted the employer at the expense of immigrant and domestic workers. Much of the political debate surrounding the H-1B program has focused on raising the annual visa cap based on inconclusive evidence of a domestic IT labor shortage. The labor shortage question has obscured the more importantissue of reforming the H-1B program to level the playing field between business and labor.     

The dynamics of immigrant welfare and labor market behavior

This paper analyzes transitions into and out of social assistance, unemployment, and employment. We estimate a dynamic multinomial logit model, controlling for endogenous initial condition and unobserved heterogeneity, using a large representative Swedish panel data set. The empirical results suggest that particularly refugee immigrants display a greater degree of “structural” state dependence than natives. The high welfare participation rates among refugee immigrants may be due to the existence of a “welfare trap”, while participation among natives and non-refugee immigrants is largely due to permanent unobserved characteristics. These results suggest that welfare reforms may have differential effects on refugee immigrants and natives.

中国大陆全民医保与台湾地区全民健保福利性之比较

中国大陆的全民医疗保险与台湾地区的全民健康保险在制度覆盖对象、基金给付范围和给付程度、基金实现效率及效果等体现制度福利强度的方面都有明显的差别,这与两地的经济实力、健保观念、健保管理经验和政治环境差异有关。借鉴台湾地区健保经验,大陆欲增强全民医保的福利效果,应把医疗保险发展成统一的全民健康保险,实行门诊和大病统筹保障;加快培育私营医疗服务机构,增加定点医疗机构并让民众自由就诊;建立以病人为中心的医院品质评价机制,引导医院改进服务设施,提高人本服务水平;加快基金按服务质量和病种付费的步伐,加速推行总额预算制;减少对公立医院的非建设性投入,加大对民众医保的投入。     

Immigration,skills and the labor market: International evidence

Using the 1994–1998 International Adult Literacy Survey, this paper compares cognitive skills and employment of immigrants in Canada, New Zealand, Switzerland, and the United States. Immigrants had lower cognitive test scores than natives in each country, with the largest gaps in the US, and small gaps in Canada and New Zealand. Male immigrants in the US were no less likely to work than natives, while in the other countries, male immigrants were less likely to be employed. Female immigrants were less likely in each country to be employed than natives, with an especially large gap for the US.The author thanks Francine D. Blau and two anonymous referees for helpful comments and suggestions and Katsuhide Yamashita for excellent research assistance. Responsible editor: Christoph M. Schmidt.     

Binge drinking and labor market success: a longitudinal study on young people

This paper presents a two-equation model of joint outcomes on an individual's decision to binge-drink and on his/her annual labor market earnings. The primary data source is the 1979 cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1979–1994. We show that binge-drinking behavior is quite alcohol-price responsive and is a rational addiction. A new result is that an individual's decision to binge-drink has a statistically significant negative effect on his/her earnings. Furthermore, we conducted simulations of the short-run and long-run impacts of increasing the alcohol price. They showed that that the tendency for an individual to binge-drink heavily is reduced significantly, and the reduction is greater in the long- than short-run simulation. Also, an individual's annual earnings were increased. However, in the structural model, an individual's earnings have no significant effect on his/her tendency to engage in binge drinking. Our results contradict earlier findings from cross-sectional evidence that showed increased alcohol consumption raised an individual's earnings or wages.

Time series analysis of fertility and female labor market behavior

Cointegration methods are employed to investigate relations among total fertility, female wages, labor force participation, educational attainment, and male relative cohort size. Two long run relations among the series are found, and these are identified as a fertility and a labor supply equation. All covariates enter into these relations with significant coefficients and theoretically plausible signs. Innovation analysis shows that both fertility and female labor force participation respond to changes in relative cohort size in directions consistent with the Easterlin hypothesis. Female labor force participation responds significantly to fertility shocks, but reverse effects are insignificant.All correspondence to Robert McNown. The authors wish to thank Cristobal Ridao-Cano, Kenneth Land, Alessandro Cigno, and an anonymous referee for comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Responsible editor: Alessandro Cigno.     

医疗体制改革与社会医疗保险基金合理利用原则的研究

中国医疗体制改革是社会主义经济体制改革的重要部分。中国的公费和劳保医疗制度为保障人民健康 ,做出了巨大的贡献。然而 ,4 0多年的实践证明 ,这种公费医疗体制不适合社会主义市场经济体制改革的趋势 ,所以导致了一系列的问题 ,如 :医疗费用激增 ,医疗服务质量下降 ,医疗机构配置不合理 ,以及医疗资源的浪费等。本文在医疗保险基金的筹资—利用系统中 ,分析了改革试点各种统账方式的利弊。在了解了医疗基金的性质、特征及支付管理内容的基础上 ,探讨了中国医疗保险基金支付方式的原则 ,分析了总额预付制在现阶段实施的可行性 ,为合理利用医疗保险基金的原则提出了较基础的评价     

Remittances as insurance: evidence from Mexican immigrants

We argue that remittances are, in part, transferred to the home country to purchase family-provided insurance and self-insurance. We use data on Mexican immigrants with work experience in the United States to capture the motives for sending remittances and use a novel approach to test for the insurance motive by relating host economy risk levels to remittance flows. We find that increases in income risk significantly raises both the propensity and the proportion of labor earnings sent home for family-provided insurance and for self-insurance.     

The effect of immigration on the labor market performance of native-born workers: some evidence for Spain

This paper provides an approximation to the labor market effects of immigrants in Spain, a country where labor market institutions and immigration policy exhibit some peculiarities, during the second half of the 1990s, the period in which immigration flows accelerated. By using alternative data sets, we estimate both the impact of legal and total immigration flows on the employment rates and wages of native workers, accounting for the possible occupational and geographical mobility of immigrants and native-born workers. Using different samples and estimation procedures, we have not found a significant negative effect of immigration on either the employment rates or wages of native workers.

Sibling rivalry and the gender gap: evidence from child health outcomes in Ghana

When capital and labor markets are imperfect, choice sets narrow, and parents must choose how to ration available funds and time between their children. One consequence is that children become rivals for household resources. In economies with pro-male bias, such rivalries can yield gains to having relatively more sisters than brothers. Using a rich household survey from Ghana, we find that on average if children had all sisters (and no brothers) they would do roughly 25-40% better on measured health indicators than if they had all brothers (and no sisters). The effects are as large as typical quantity-quality trade-offs, and they do not differ significantly by gender. Received: 22 May 1996 / Accepted: 13 July 1998     

The effect of acupressure on the initiation of labor: A randomized controlled trial

Background

Induction of labor is a common obstetric procedure. Acupressure is a natural method that is used for inducing uterine contractions. Nevertheless, few studies have examined the impact of acupressure on the induction of labor.

The substitutability of labor between immigrants and natives in the Canadian labor market: circa 1995

This paper examines the substitutability or complementarity between Canadian-born and immigrant workers. These are examined by estimating a set of wage equations using a generalized Leontief production function. The paper finds that, in general, there is no displacement of Canadian-born workers by immigrants. Recent immigrants affect the native-born positively, while older immigrants are neither substitute nor complement for natives. However, the effects differ across industries. Overall, the evidence that immigrants harm the opportunities of native-born workers is scant.

Child labor versus educational attainment: some evidence from Latin America

The paper addresses the issue of child labor in relation to the educational attainment of working children. The empirical analysis is based on household surveys in Bolivia and Venezuela. It was found that labor force participation is non-trivial among those below the legal working age or supposed to be in school. Working children contribute significantly to total household income. The fact that a child is working reduces his or her educational attainment by about 2 years of schooling relative to the control group of non-working children. Grade repetition, a common phenomenon in Latin America, is closely associated with child labor. JEL classification: J13, J21, I21 Received May 2, 1996/Accepted August 14, 1996     

Getting back into the labor market: the effects of start-up subsidies for unemployed females

Low female labor market participation is a problem many developed countries have to face. Beside activating inactive women, one possible solution is to support the re-integration of unemployed women. Due to female-specific labor market constraints (preferences for flexible working hours, discrimination), this is a difficult task, and the question arises whether active labor market policies (ALMP) are an appropriate tool to help. It has been shown that the effectiveness of traditional (ALMP) programs—which focus on the integration in dependent (potentially inflexible) employment—is positive but limited. At the same time, recent evidence for Austria shows that these programs reduce fertility which might be judged unfavorable from a societal perspective. Promoting self-employment among unemployed women might therefore be a promising alternative. Starting their own business might give women more independence and flexibility to reconcile work and family and increase labor market participation. Based on long-term informative data, we find that start-up programs persistently integrate former unemployed women into the labor market, and the impact on fertility is less detrimental than for traditional ALMP programs.     

The performance of immigrants in the Norwegian labor market

This paper tests the assimilation hypothesis with Norwegian data. Using both cross-section and cohort analyses, the results show that the 1970–1979 immigrant cohort experienced an earnings growth of about 11% between 1980 and 1990, when their earnings profile was compared to that of natives. This is lower than the 19% assimilation rate predicted by the cross-section method. On the contrary, the results reveal a rapid earnings divergence across cohorts, and between the 1960–1969 cohort and natives. It is also shown that the „quality” of successive immigrant waves has declined over time, thus biasing the cross-section estimates of assimilation. Received: 8 August 1995 / Accepted: 7 January 1997     

大都市服务经济发展的劳动力因素——基于从业人口数据模型的分析

本文在对比分析纽约、东京两个国外大都市服务经济发展的一般规律和劳动力变动特征基础上,以服务业从业人口结构和规模的历史数据作为切入点,对比分析上海服务业的发展状况,指出上海与纽约、东京服务经济发展的差距及存在的主要问题。并进一步构建了基于从业人口数据回归分析的服务经济发展预测模型,运用该模型对上海市未来服务经济从业人口的比重进行预测．分析表明上海的服务业发展正处于加速增长期,并仍将保持快速发展的势头,按此速度到2020年其从业人数比重可达80％;要实现上海服务经济的健康、快速发展应采取积极的人才引进战略和人口政策。     

Male-female differences in labor market outcomes during the early transition to market: The cases of Estonia and Slovenia

Changes in women's relative wages and employment are analyzed, using social security data from Slovenia (1987–1992) and a retrospective labor force survey in Estonia (1989–1994). Estonia adopted liberal labor market policies. Slovenia took an interventionist approach. Nevertheless, relative wages for women rose in both countries. Factors favoring women included: returns to human capital rose in transition, benefiting women; relative labor demand shifted toward predominantly female sectors; low-wage women had a disproportionate incentive to exit the labor market, especially in Estonia. However, women were less mobile across jobs in both countries, so men disproportionately filled new jobs in expanding sectors. Received: 27 November 1997/Accepted: 20 December 1998