Some Links on International Economics

A very interesting post on the political economy of trade policy. Econbrowser: Thirty Years Ago Today: Racial and ethnic animosity play an important role; however, you'd think politicians would try to veil that dimension more than they do here or here.

Also very interesting, new research on the role of industry fragmentation and global supply chains. Unilateral tariff liberalisation | vox.

How big are the gains from trade? « Trade Diversion: Some research has suggested much smaller gains from trade based on some of the classical models. When one takes a more modern approach (especially accounting for "cross-industry variation in trade elasticities") the gains from trade are as big as they ever were (around 25-45 percent of GDP for the US).

The World Bank has published a new book on migration and remittances: Migration and remittances during the crisis and beyond.

Some papers on immigration, remittances, and institutions

Do Workers' Remittances Promote Economic Growth? (Barajas, et al., 2009)

Eight Questions about Brian Drain (Gibson & McKenzie, 2011)

A Gravity Model of Workers' Remittances (Lueth and Ruiz-Arranz, 2006)

Business Cycles and Workers' Remittances (Sayan, 2006)

Seminar on Remittance Statistics (International Monetary Fund, 2007)

Determinants and Consequences of Workers' Remittances (Vargas-Silva, 2006)

Some links on trade and migration

America's Lost Decade and trade (Free Exchange)
The Great Relocation? (Marginal Revolution)

Some links on immigration

Let them come. (Economist)
Tap their earnings back home. (Economist)

Some Links

Michelle Bachman's solution to high gas prices: another recession?
This always bears repeating. We live in one of the most peaceful times of the modern era.
Get up or pay!
The revenue-neutral carbon tax.
Diaspora bonds? Color me skeptical. Previous attempts to use active policy to sop up more of emigrants' surplus have not been so successful.
Biggest parenting mistakes ever? Mine, I'm sure, are still to come.
News flash: cash transfers dominate in-kind gifts.

Some Links: Porn is good.

So, it at least looks doubtful that porn increases sexual violence; it may reduce it.

A couple of links on migration:

Where is everybody? Some difficulties in migration research and some new data sources (VOX).

Less Mexicans migrating (PeopleMove)?

Is the market crazy? (Freakonomics) I don't think so. I'm not surprised at a decline in stocks with the uncertainty about the debt and, more importantly, about debt politics. Political uncertainty can be an important factor in economic performance, but over the long run superior property rights, contracting, and civil liberty will root out the short run uncertainty wrought by partisanship.

What are the Tea Partiers' interests? (Economix)

Some links on immigration and trade (and a couple on statistics)

So, what we can get from this is: (1) immigrants are favorably selected (relative to education levels in their home countries - nothing new); (2) this is not always a bad thing for the home countries in the long run. It does not lead to the conclusion that immigrants should be deliberately cherry picked by some artificial policy mechanism.
Banking in the US is finally catching up with resources already available to Africa.
Finance and trade: A historical perspective. (Vox)
Gambling: chance or skill? (Freakonomics)
Some interesting polling data on perceptions about homosexuality. (Economist/Democracy in America) Makes me think the "gay marriage trick" won't work in 2012 like it did in 2004.
Semi-random link on self-publishing a book. (Freakonomics)

Some links on trade and immigration

Free Trade Agreements may be good, even if there is trade diversion. This is true, and we have known it theoretically for a while. This post summarizes some empirical evidence supporting it. (Jim Anderson, Vox)
US trade policy and Doha: Multilateralism is less important to US trade policy these days and bilateral agreements are starting to take precedence. Is this good? (Fred Bergsten, Vox)
US trade policy in the 21st century: strategic trade mistakes of the past redux? (Richard Baldwin, Vox, part I; here is part II)
Migration restrictions and the flow of immigrants. It seems plausible that one conclusion from this article is that immigration restrictions do almost nothing to curtail the quantity of immigrants, might even increase the number of immigrants in the US (by lengthening stays of would-be short term or seasonal migrants who now incur higher border crossing costs), and mainly serves to transfer rents to criminals. (Drew Keeling, Vox)
The curious case of the CIS. (Dilip Ratha, People Move)

Some links on trade and immigration

New regulations on remittances (WSJ)
What would really bring a dollar dive? (Chinn) (Answer: "a failure to raise the debt ceiling in a timely fashion")
Free trade agreements and democracy (Vox: Xuepeng Liu)
More on demographics in China and inter-temporal comparative advantage, sorta. (People Move)

Some links

There is no great stagnation. (Free Exchange)
Rule #1: Buy low sell high. Rule #2: You can't make up a per-unit loss with quantity. Don't forget rule #1.
Optimal punishment for bribery: giving a bribe is legal, soliciting is illegal. (Economist)
Optimal bribery for kids. (Boston Globe)
Rent vs. Buy (Economix)
Selling Government Land (MR)

Some international econ links

Trump's trade policy. WTF? More here.
TC on Stolper-Samuelson. I'd like to point out that S-S doesn't directly imply Factor Price Equalization. S-S just identifies the winners and losers; FPE is a stronger result that requires additional assumptions.
Closed borders, by one of my dissertation mentors.

A lot of stuff from VOX on International

Financial Globalization
Services Trade
Study Abroad and Labor Mobility
Hidden Barriers
Trade Slumps: Is this time different? Yes.
The New Elhanan Helpman Book

Some Links on International Economics and other Random Stuff.

In factor endowments models of trade, we usually think of the quantity of land as fixed. Dubai tried to disprove this, but their man-made islands are now sinking. Nature seems to have a better way of proving me wrong. (NYTimes)
An interesting take on the trade deficit with China, which, by the way fits with a simple inter-temporal comparative advantage story. (Economist)
Female Migration and Development. (PeopleMove; also here)

Economists behaving badly. (Ezra Klein)
"Page Numbers are for Wussies." (Cheep Talk)

Some Links on International Econ, and other stuff.

Trade, integration, and political reform in MENA (VOX)
Really? Do we have to block everything? How bout you pass the pro-market stuff, Republicans? (NYTimes)
More people latching onto Uwe Reinhardt's flawed characterization of international economists (World Trade Law)
JLR for now, Tata for later? (Economist)
Second-generation immigrants - problem? (Economist)
Finally, some music. A few seconds from every chart-topper since 1956 (ECC)

Some Links, Including the Benefits of Holding "it" In

We make better long-run decisions on a full bladder. I can't wait to share this with my 75-minute classes. (APS)
Wage gaps and education. Some of this seems contrary to the recent evidence of stagnating education wage premia. (Krugman and Cowen - separately, of course!)
Given these structural changes, structural change is not welfare-neutral, even in the long run. (Rodrik)
Even (especially?) informed voters just really don't have beliefs about politics and policy that are consistent with reality. (Caplan)
Is controlled immigration better for welfare programs? This seems to assume a lot about the effectiveness of the controls.  (VOX)

Some Links on International Economics

I wonder if my students are having trouble finding news articles on international economics for their blog assignment. I'm not.
Trade in intermediate goods and underestimating the gains from trade (Vox).
More on measuring trade flows (WTI).
Opening Japan (again?) (Economist).
Germany's great decade through trade (Economist).
Should the EU ban on seal products be lifted (WTI)?
Somali piracy (and trade costs?) (Economist).
Trade liberalization in South Asia (Vox).
Barriers to remittances (lost gains from migration?) (Peoplemove).
Leaving Tunisia (Reuters).

Some links, including some drunken research

I can imagine a situation where I might do research after a beer or two. All that would lead to is miscoding of data. These jackwagons made a breakthrough on superconductors.
Coffee in meetings: good for women, bad for men.
The costs of the war on drugs; cartel wars.
A couple of links on education and inequality.
Why seniors should favor immigration (legal or otherwise).
A couple of links on commodidty prices and growth: Econbrowser and The Economist.

Some Links on Trade, Immigration, and Income Distribution

(Unlike immigrants) will robots permanently drive down real wages? I agree that immigrants will not necessarily drive down wages, but am skeptical as to whether robots will. (Modeled Behavior)
Increasing opposition to immigration - is it inversely correlated with the actual immigrant population? (Cleveland Plain Dealer)
Baby steps to promote free trade in 2011. (WSJ)
Are the poor worse off when the rich are better off? Not always. (Economist)
Could you be richer if you really wanted to be and if so what does that do to income distribution at the macro level? (Gelman)
Giving back the Bush tax cuts for jobs and fairness (Freakonomics)

Immigration in the News

Immigration may be the only real issue that gets any progress during the next two years. Here are some things happening at the state level.
Georgia seeks to keep immigrants' kids out of higher ed, while California seeks to give them a path to citizenship through education or public service (The Economist) I would say a reasonable compromise might be to let them be admitted, but charge full tuition.
SB1070 aftermath in Arizona. When neo-Nazis are among your most vocal supporters, it might be a sign that you're not doing the right thing, even if half of all Arizonans are on your side.

Several Links

This one is oldish but I think an interesting read on the composition of US health care costs (the Incidental Economist).
China's new five-year plan (the Economist).
Underwater (The Economist).
Trade Costs (Free Exchange).
The microeffects of the Arizona immigration law (Washington Post).
Meanwhile we send mixed signals (People Move).
Where the money is in the music industry (Economist).
Oil prices (Economist).