In this policy piece, we investigate the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)–food-insecurity migration channel and develop a policy agenda. The interaction between COVID-19 and the drop in economic ...activity will lead to increased food insecurity within and across countries. Higher food insecurity may act as a multiplier for the epidemic due to its negative health effects and increased migration. Research has shown that food insecurity affects within-country and cross-border migration. Besides the mean prevalence rate, the distribution of food insecurity affects the migration decision. The impacts of COVID-19 are particularly strong for people in the lower tail of the food-insecurity distribution. In the current context, the effect of food insecurity therefore could be increased migration, including both rural–urban migration and international migration. Importantly, the crisis might lead to a structural break in migration patterns. People might avoid heavily affected COVID-19 destination countries (e.g., United States, Italy, or Spain) and move to other countries. Due to the persistent nature of migration flows, this could have long-lasting effects.
In this paper, I construct a novel data set from individual curriculum vitae of economists at the top 100 US departments to study gender differences in the drivers of scholarly performance. Using a ...Shapley decomposition procedure to estimate the contribution of each driver in explaining the variation in mean and inequality of research performance, I find that for women, current placement is a more important driver of performance and inequality in performance compared to men. For men, co-authorship is the most important driver. Overall, my results suggest that networks are the key driver of performance and of inequality in performance.
JEL codes: A14, J16, J24
Foreign aid payments have been a key policy response by Global North countries to reduce increased migration flows from the Global South. In this article, we contribute to the literature on the ...relationship between aid and international migration flows and estimate the contemporaneous effect of bilateral aid payments on bilateral, international migration flows. The fundamental problem in analyzing this relationship is endogeneity, or reverse causality. To address this issue and achieve causal inference, we use a shift-share, or Bartik, instrument. Examining migration flows between 198 origin countries and 16 OECD destination countries over 36 years (1980−2015), we find a positive relationship between aid and migration. A ten-percent increase in aid payments will increase migration by roughly 2 percent. We further document non-linearity in the relationship between aid and migration and find an inverted U-shaped relationship between aid and migration flows. The findings presented here have implications for the design of bilateral and multilateral aid policies and for achieving various United Nations Sustainable Development Goals by stressing the importance of a better coordination between aid and immigration policies.
The driving forces of international migration are increasingly complex and interrelated. This article examines the relationship between food insecurity and regular, permanent international migration. ...The analysis draws on data from the first global measure of individual-level food insecurity combined with data on migration flows from 198 origin countries to 16 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development destination countries for 2014 and 2015. Using a fixed-effects regression model that resembles an augmented gravity equation controlling for various confounding factors, we show both a significant positive correlation between food insecurity at origin and out-migration and a positive correlation between out-migration and within-country inequality in food insecurity at origin. Our findings imply that people may react not only to the average prevalence of food insecurity but also to their relative position in the distribution of food insecurity within their origin country. This finding may help inform policymakers about potential threshold effects and guide the design of migration policies and aid programs. It also contributes to the study of international migration flows by presenting novel evidence for the role of food insecurity and within-country inequality in food insecurity as drivers of migration flows.
In this paper we present novel evidence about heterogeneity in climate beliefs using a large-scale survey of farmers, foresters, growers, and lifestyle block owners in New Zealand. Using a flexible, ...conditional-moments approach, we estimate the interpersonal dispersion in climate change beliefs conditional on individual characteristics, which provides a direct measure of the heterogeneity in beliefs about climate change. Our results show that women, younger respondents, farmers with less family farming history, higher educated respondents, and those respondents who are less trusting in social media are more likely to believe in climate change. Further, beliefs are more heterogeneous among males (young and old), the less educated, and those who trust social media. Our results offer new insights allowing governments and NGOs to design and communicate policies to reduce the heterogeneity in climate change beliefs, which should support the uptake of climate change actions.
Several of Kahneman and Tversky's seminal works in the 1970s found evidence of the importance of framing in decision making under risk. They hypothesized that imaginability (visual imagery ability) ...may play an important role in the evaluation of subjective probabilities. However, the impact of visual imagery ability on choice under risk has not yet been explored. This is the main purpose of our study. In an online experiment, we collected participants' visual imagery ability using the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire and their risk attitude using two choice-based risk elicitation tasks. Participants made their risk decisions either in an environment where risk was visualized (visual frame) or not (non-visual frame), and were randomly assigned to one of the two decision frames. Our results suggest that neither visual imagery ability nor decision frame has a substantial impact on risk attitude.
Abstract In this paper, we study the effect of search and matching frictions, i.e., equilibrium unemployment, on fiscal financing decisions in the United States. We build a Real Business Cycle model ...with labour market frictions and a rich set of fiscal tools and estimate the model using Bayesian methods on US data for various fiscal rule specifications. Most importantly, we find that the model with unemployment, output and debt in the fiscal rules fits the data best. Under the fiscal rule that best fits the data, the reaction of fiscal instruments to output and debt are significantly quantitatively different than a rule that ignores unemployment. Fiscal instruments react stronger to cyclical factors except transfers. These changes also affect model dynamics in response to fundamental non‐fiscal shocks.
PurposeExtensive literature studies the causes of crime and crime reporting behaviour. In contrast, there is hardly any scholarship on delays in reporting a crime and what drives them. Understanding ...delays in reporting crimes is important for various reasons, for example, because they could decrease the likelihood of an arrest or lead to an issue with the statute of limitations. This paper is the first to analyse the delay in reporting crimes and environmental drivers of these delays.Design/methodology/approachThe authors construct a novel data set combining all crimes reported in New York City from 2006 to 2020 (N = 2,442,288) with station-level data on weather variables (temperature, rainfall, relative humidity, visibility and wind speed) and four types of air pollutants (carbon monoxide, ozone, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide). Matching these three data sets using the geolocation occurs at an hourly frequency. Importantly, the crime data provided by the NYPD allows us to control for several other factors that could potentially affect crime reporting behaviour.FindingsThe authors show that 30 percent of reported crimes in New York City were reported with a delay. The average reporting delay was 10.79 days. Carbon monoxide influences for delays in reporting violent crimes and rainfall affects delays in reporting property crimes. Relative humidity, as a driver of wet bulb temperature, affects delays in reporting violent crimes as well.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors present novel facts about delays in reporting crimes and how these are related to weather and air pollution. The authors’ findings have implications for government regulation of air pollution as well as for real-time crime forecasting. They should also aid victim support groups in providing services.Originality/valueThis paper is the first to analyse the impact of environmental factors on the delay in reporting crimes.
This paper adds to the literature on the determinants of international migration. First, we offer a joint analysis of the driving forces of migration capturing year-to-year variations and long-run ...effects. Second, we analyze the dynamic response of migration to shocks to its determinants.
We start by presenting a theoretical model that allows us to model migration as an augmented gravity equation. We then construct a rich panel data set with 16 destination and 198 origin countries between 1980 and 2015. We find that climate variables are important drivers of migration flows in our sample.
We then estimate a panel vectorautoregressive model showing that the dynamic response of migration is very different across shocks to different driving forces. These findings add to the discussion about the effects of climate shocks on mobility and the concept of trapped population. Our findings carry implications for national and international immigration policies.
•This paper adds to the literature on the determinants of international migration.•We construct a panel data set with 16 destination and 198 origin countries from 1980 to 2015.•Climate change is a more important driver than income and political freedom at origin together.•The dynamic response of migration is very different across shocks to different driving forces.•Our findings add to the discussion about the effects of climate shocks on mobility and the concept of trapped population.
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