Public policy and the labor market adjustment of new immigrants to Australia

Two separate cohorts of immigrants to Australia are compared in order to assess the potential role of immigrant selection criteria, labor market conditions, and income-support policy in facilitating the labor market adjustment of new arrivals. Although these two cohorts entered Australia only five years apart, their initial labor market outcomes varied dramatically. The results indicate that changes in immigration policy may have led to increased human capital endowments that in turn resulted in higher participation rates and reduced unemployment. At the same time, improvement in Australian labor market conditions and changes in income-support policy over the 1990s – which most likely altered the returns to human capital – were probably instrumental in reinforcing the effects of tighter immigrant selection criteria. As much as half of the fall in unemployment rates among women and one third the decline among men appears to have occurred as the result of changes in the returns to demographic and human capital characteristics. Responsible editor:Christoph M. Schmidt     

An evaluation of the Tokyo Round trade agreement using general equilibrium computational methods

An empirically based general equilibrium model involving the United States, Japan, the (nine-member) EEC, and a residual rest of the world is used to evaluate the Tokyo Round trade agreement negotiated under the GATT. Equilibria for post-Agreement policy regimes are computed and compared to a pre-Agreement equilibrium. Results indicate small aggregate welfare impacts but more significant terms of trade effects. Losses seem likely for Third World countries due to an adverse terms of trade change. Under some assumptions the changes in NTB codes produce more significant effects than the tariff cuts in the Agreement.     

Policy modeling of foreign exchange rates

This paper is neither a complete survey of empirical work on exchange rate determination, nor a review of the ballooning volume of theoretical models. It is instead an attempt to classify the main alternative approaches to modeling exchange rates. I shall concentrate on approaches that can be used to assess the effects of alternative policies. There will be four further sections in the paper. The first three sections will each deal withthe structure, empirical support, and policy consequences of three main types of model: purchasing power parity models emphasizing the close and immediate relation of goods markets; interest rate parity models emphasizing the close and immediate international linkage of markets for financial assets; and structural balance-of-payments models that do not assume either of the above linkages to be so strong and immediate as to eliminate the other, and that hence require separate (but interdependent) modeling of trade and capital linkages in the determination of exchange rates. Each of these main categories has many rather distinct models within it, and some models are not easily classified into one of the three categories; I hope that the three-way split will nevertheless serve to make some distinctions that are important for policy modeling.In the final section I shall try to summarize the available model results that pertain to national and international policy choices under a system of more flexible exchange rates, and then to suggest where more or better model building might usefully increase the amount of information available to guide policy decisions.     

情态显隐性的语用分级与CET4/6阅读语篇特征研究

情态表达言者的判断、态度等含义,具有显隐性和主客观性。根据情态的四种取向,本文对近十年的CET4/6阅读中的短文语篇、正确选项和干扰项的语篇作了分析,试图发现各自的情态特征和相关性,以提高阅读理解的效率。     

蒙台梭利语文教学法对4-6岁幼儿阅读能力的实验研究

采用前后测实验法，选取24名4-6岁幼儿，探析蒙台梭利语文教学法对4-6岁幼儿阅读能力的影响。结果表明：在听觉词汇能力方面，4-6岁幼儿在名词上有较好的表现，动词与形容词上相对较弱；在阅读理解方面，大多数的幼儿有明显的进步，能理解日常生活中的常用概念并加以运用，能合理地推理故事中的情节，以及故事中所发生的事件及其缘由；在口语表达方面，幼儿也表现出明显的进步，能进行故事的回忆，能合理的推理故事中的情节，根据故事的内容能产生自我的观点等。以上结论说明，蒙台梭利语文教学法能有效提升幼儿的阅读能力，可用于幼儿园教育实践。     

India's Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Act: Assessing the quality of access and adequacy of benefits in MGNREGS public works

The extension of social protection to all has become a central policy objective, both nationally and internationally. A considerable number of middle‐ and low‐income countries have undertaken substantial efforts to extend social protection, while the international community reaffirmed its commitment to the extension of social protection through the adoption of the ILO Recommendation concerning National Floors of Social Protection, No. 202 (2012). This article reviews the legal provisions and the implementation of the Indian Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), legislated in 2005, and does so in the light of the more recent provisions of ILO Recommendation No. 202. Since its introduction ten years ago, MGNREGA has provided a source of income to rural workers, increased wage rates, achieved high female participation rates and created durable assets. India's local governance bodies, Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI), have been empowered and involved in the processes of planning and monitoring. However, despite successes, there have been considerable shortcomings in implementation. This article highlights two central themes: first, the innovative policy framework of the Act, which brings together rights‐based entitlements, demand‐driven employment, and citizen‐centred monitoring. Second, it assesses the accessibility and adequacy of benefits in the implementation of MGNREGA. We conclude that MGNREGA offers potential for South‐South learning, both in terms of policy‐design and implementation.     

How much do OECD countries spend on social protection and how redistributive are their tax/benefit systems?

The global economic crisis has reignited interest in social policy and public spending on different types of social benefits. Public social spending‐to‐GDP ratios are often used to consider the magnitude of welfare systems in international perspective, but such comparisons alone give an incomplete picture of social effort across countries. This article looks at these different factors, before briefly considering the redistributive nature of tax/benefit systems in different member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD). The article also considers trends in social spending and compares spending in the late 2000s with the early 1990s when the previous economic crisis played out. The article ends by illustrating the profound effect the recent global economic crisis had on social spending trends across OECD countries.     

大力发展新疆特色轻工业加快推进新疆新型工业化进程

大力发展新疆特色轻工业,是进一步实施优势资源转换战略,推进新疆新型工业化的重要内容."十一五"时期,新疆特色轻工业要依托优势轻工业资源,坚持以市场为导向,重点推进,大力发展六大优势轻工业特色产业.     

Challenges of Hong Kong toy manufacturers operating plants in the Pearl River Delta

For years, Hong Kong has been the world6awnh3u4l34/xxlarge8217.gif" alt="rsquo" align="BASELINE" BORDER="0">s largest toy exporter. However, as the costs of rent and labor have increased drastically over the past years, Hong Kong toy manufacturers have moved their labor-intensive operations to other lower-wage areas. The Pearl River Delta (PRD) region of the People6awnh3u4l34/xxlarge8217.gif" alt="rsquo" align="BASELINE" BORDER="0">s Republic of China (PRC) has been one of their favorite choices for outsourcing because of cheap and available labor. This paper explores, using data culled from interviews with the senior management of five leading Hong Kong toy companies, how some Hong Kong toy manufacturers overcame various strategic management issues after having made the move to the PRD. The results are presented within five major areas of concern: rules and regulations, the less-developed infrastructure, R&D, relationship with suppliers, and new technology, and they are used to show how the manufacturers were able to overcome various strategic constraints in order to accomplish outstanding performance. Supporting data were gathered through factory visits in order to better understand the actual operations within the PRD. This collected experience should be beneficial to other manufacturers interested in operating plants within the PRD.     

A model of the Canadian global exchange rate: A test of the 1970s

A review of the literature indicates that no single exchange rate model has been able to track successfully the movements of the Canadian dollar for both the 1970–1976 period and the period thereafter. The purchasing power parity model, irrespective of whether based on relative wholesale prices, unit labor costs, GNP deflators, or export prices performs very poorly; the monetarist models collapse because of their strict adherence to the purchasing power parity and interest rate parity assumptions; the portfolio demand models require a significant adjustment for the post-1976 period. This paper presents a medium-term eclectic model of the global exchange rate of the Canadian dollar and examines a spectrum of broad issues that reflect on the efficiency of the foreign exchange market of Canada. These issues are basically related to the interest parity assumption, the role of speculation, and the test of rational expectations. The global exchange rate is defined as the value of the Canadian dollar measured in terms of a unit of basket of currencies comprising currencies of France, West Germany, Japan, the U.K., and the USA. The model belongs to the same genre of balance of payments structural models that explain the exchange rates by balancing demand and supply of foreign currencies. The model simultaneously explains both spot and forward rates, and it has been estimated and tested by using the quarterly data for 1971–1981.