世界経済・社会統計 = World development indicators

NUDGE: IMPROVING DECISIONS ABOUT HEALTH, WEALTH, AND HAPPINESS by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein Penguin Books, 2009, 312 pp, ISBN 978-0-14-311526-7This book is best described formally as a general explanation of and advocacy for libertarian paternalism, a term coined by the authors in earlier publications. Informally, it is about how leaders, systems, organizations, and governments can nudge people to do the things the nudgers want and need done for the betterment of the nudgees, or of society. It is paternalism in the sense that "it is legitimate for choice architects to try to influence people's behavior in order to make their lives longer, healthier, and better", (p. 5) It is libertarian in that "people should be free to do what they like - and to opt out of undesirable arrangements if they want to do so", (p. 5) The built-in possibility of opting out or making a different choice preserves freedom of choice even though people's behavior has been influenced by the nature of the presentation of the information or by the structure of the decisionmaking system. I had never heard of libertarian paternalism before reading this book, and I now find it fascinating.Written for a general audience, this book contains mostly social and behavioral science theory and models, but there is considerable discussion of structure and process that has roots in mathematical and quantitative modeling. One of the main applications of this social system is economic choice in investing, selecting and purchasing products and services, systems of taxes, banking (mortgages, borrowing, savings), and retirement systems. Other quantitative social choice systems discussed include environmental effects, health care plans, gambling, and organ donations. Softer issues that are also subject to a nudge-based approach are marriage, education, eating, drinking, smoking, influence, spread of information, and politics. There is something in this book for everyone.The basis for this libertarian paternalism concept is in the social theory called "science of choice", the study of the design and implementation of influence systems on various kinds of people. The terms Econs and Humans, are used to refer to people with either considerable or little rational decision-making talent, respectively. The various libertarian paternalism concepts and systems presented are tested and compared in light of these two types of people. Two foundational issues that this book has in common with another book, Network of Echoes: Imitation, Innovation and Invisible Leaders, that was also reviewed for this issue of the Journal are that 1 ) there are two modes of thinking (or components of the brain) - an automatic (intuitive) process and a reflective (rational) process and 2) the need for conformity and the desire for imitation are powerful forces in human behavior. …

Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness

Preface to the 3rd Edition - Introduction - The Migratory Process and the Formation of Ethnic Minorities - International Migration Before 1945 - Migration to Highly Developed Countries since 1945 - The State of International Migration: The Quest for Control - The Next Waves: The Globalization of International Migration - New Migrations in the Asia-Pacific Region - Migrants and Minorities in the Labour Force - The Migratory Process: A Comparison of Australia and Germany - New Ethnic Minorities and Society - Migrants and Politics - Conclusion: Migration in the Post Cold-War Era of Globalization

The Age of Migration

This literature review concerns the impact of immigration on the economy of the host country focusing on the experience of the United States. The emphasis is on the period from the 1970s to the 1990s. The author shows that research earlier in this period generally concluded that the economic effects of immigration were positive but that more recent research on later migrations have generally concluded that immigration may be having an adverse effect on the earnings of native unskilled workers and be placing an increased burden on welfare programs. The importance of such economic analysis for the formulation of appropriate migration policies is stressed.

http://www.kleykampintaiwan.com/files/GradEco/TheEconOfImmig.pdf

The Economics of Immigration

This project will deliver help to reduce the vulnerability of poor people in Haiti to the effects of climate change, while at the same time conserving threatened coastal and marine biodiversity. Investments in climateproofed and socially-sustainable BD conservation strategies, within the context of the National Protected Areas System (NPAS), will enable coastal and marine ecosystems to continue to generate Ecosystem-Based Adaptation (EBA) services; while additional investment of adaptation funds in the watersheds which drain into these ecosystems will serve to maximize BD benefits and ecosystem functions, as well as generating EBA benefits for the populations living in the watersheds themselves.

/pdf/the-united-nations-development-programme-3oj9udayrc.pdf

The United Nations Development Programme

Trade, aid and migrations: Some basic policy issues

Net migration into the EU has been substantial over the past decade: After peaking at over 1 million per year in the early 1990’s, net migration to the EU declined over the past decade but is now rising again, and was over 700,000 in 1999. The net legal immigration rate for the EU, 1990-98, was 2.2 per 1000 inhabitants, compared with 3 for the US and almost 0 for Japan. Illegal immigration is estimated to be 60% higher in Europe, at about 500,000 per annum, than in the US. The population of the EU is 34% larger than that of the US. Refugees seeking asylum in the EU between 1989 and 1998 have also exceeded an average of 350,000 per annum, with over 20% being granted entry. As a result of substantial net migration flows, the stock of foreign born in the population of a typical EU country has steadily increased – particularly in Germany – where the stock of foreign population grew by about 3 million to 7.3 million between 1985 and 1999. The percentage of the population with foreign nationality in EU countries is 8.9% in Germany, 9.1% in Austria, 8.7% in Belgium, 6.3% in France, 2.1% in Italy and 3.8% in the UK. The process of naturalisation in some countries causes these figures to substantially understate the proportion of foreign born.

Managing Migration in the European Welfare State

The links between migration and economic growth are explored in the context of southern Europe over the period 1962-1988. The authors argue that an increase in wages in poor sending countries will have a positive impact in the propensity to migrate whereas the same increase in receiving countries will tend to decrease migration. "We predict therefore a steady decline in the propensity to migrate from South European countries. Similarly our results highlight the possibility that the pressure to migrate from North African countries and other developing countries may increase with further growth." (EXCERPT)

Migration and growth: the experience of southern Europe.

The paper analyses the impact of foreign workers on the Italian labour market. We address the issue of whether immigrants from less developed countries are complementary or substitutes to domestic workers. We construct a data set on immigrant workers from the Administrative Social Security Archive which starts in 1986, before the general amnesty of 1990–91, when a large share of illegal immigrants were granted working permits, and end in 1995. A two-stage procedure devised by Moulton is applied to yearly cross-sections of wages by industry and region. Our results show that the inflow of immigrants raises the wages of native manual workers (i.e. it has a complementary effect), and this effect is larger in small firms and in the north of the country. We postulate that the positive impact on native wages is due to the existence of labour constraints on the side of firms. Firms are unable to expand their output because they cannot find native workers who are willing to undertake certain (typically low-skilled) jobs. Immigrants help to fill this gap. This view is reinforced by the fact that over a ‘crucial threshold’ of the share of foreign work (7.7–12 percent) additional inflows in the labour market of foreign work have a negative effect on native wages (i.e. they compete with natives).

Do Immigrants Compete with Natives

The electricity market experiences pronounced short term volatility due to its peculiarities, first of all continuous load variations associated to the impossibility to profitably store electric energy. Electricity price forecasting is extremely important for all market players and in particular for generating companies, that must manage their units, and the associated economic risk, in the short, medium and long term. In general, price volatility depends on a large number of parameters such as: fuel prices (often related to currency exchange rates), availability of generating units, hydro generation production, demand elasticity and variations, network congestion and management rules of any specific electricity market. This study provides an analysis of day-ahead spot market price volatility in Spain, California, UK and PJM markets. Electricity prices for the years 1999 and 2000 have been used for the study. The analysis has been carried out on the basis of an original definition of price volatility.

Alessandra Venturini

Papers

Trade, aid and migrations: Some basic policy issues

Managing Migration in the European Welfare State

Migration and growth: the experience of southern Europe.

Do Immigrants Compete with Natives

Day-ahead market price volatility analysis in deregulated electricity markets