Migration of workers from developing to developed countries and the resulting remittance flows ar... more Migration of workers from developing to developed countries and the resulting remittance flows are important development policies. World Bank calculations show that restrictions on international migration have larger welfare costs than the more widely studied restrictions on international trade. But estimated gains from migration may be affected by selection bias, with differences in outcomes for migrants and non-migrants reflecting unobserved differences in ability, skills, and motivation, rather than the act of moving itself. This poster illustrates this selection bias in commonly used statistical corrections for nonrandom selection. A unique survey conducted by the authors of Tongan migrants in New Zealand, and of non-migrants in Tonga is used. New Zealand allows a quota of Tongans to immigrate each year with a lottery used to choose amongst the excess number of applicants. Experimental estimates of the income gains from migration are obtained by comparing the incomes of migrants...
One of the reasons why inequality in earnings may have widened in recent years is due to technolo... more One of the reasons why inequality in earnings may have widened in recent years is due to technological changes, which include the wider use of computers within the workplace. Partly as a result, the current Government is keen on encouraging people to obtain the computer skills required to enable them to be part of the modern economy. A number of international studies have shown that workers who use a computer at work earn more than workers who do not. While large-scale survey data on wages and computer use in New Zealand are unavailable it is possible to examine the effect on wages of receiving computer-related training. The results from the 1996 Education and Training Survey suggest that there is a significant effect on wages for those workers who received some form of computer training. These effects persist even when controlling for occupation and industry, and they exceed the wage effects of training in other subjects.
Discrimination in the allocation of goods between boys and girls within households in Papua New G... more Discrimination in the allocation of goods between boys and girls within households in Papua New Guinea is examined using Deaton's (1989) outlay-equivalent ratio method. Adding a boy to the household reduces expenditure on adult goods by as much as would a nine-tenths reduction in total outlay per member, but girls have no effect on adult goods expenditure. The hypothesis of Haddad and Reardon (1993) that gender bias is inversely related to the importance of female labour in agricultural production is not supported. There is no evidence of bias against girls in the urban sector.
Migration of workers from developing to developed countries and the resulting remittance flows ar... more Migration of workers from developing to developed countries and the resulting remittance flows are important development policies. World Bank calculations show that restrictions on international migration have larger welfare costs than the more widely studied restrictions on international trade. But estimated gains from migration may be affected by selection bias, with differences in outcomes for migrants and non-migrants reflecting unobserved differences in ability, skills, and motivation, rather than the act of moving itself. This poster illustrates this selection bias in commonly used statistical corrections for nonrandom selection. A unique survey conducted by the authors of Tongan migrants in New Zealand, and of non-migrants in Tonga is used. New Zealand allows a quota of Tongans to immigrate each year with a lottery used to choose amongst the excess number of applicants. Experimental estimates of the income gains from migration are obtained by comparing the incomes of migrants...
One of the reasons why inequality in earnings may have widened in recent years is due to technolo... more One of the reasons why inequality in earnings may have widened in recent years is due to technological changes, which include the wider use of computers within the workplace. Partly as a result, the current Government is keen on encouraging people to obtain the computer skills required to enable them to be part of the modern economy. A number of international studies have shown that workers who use a computer at work earn more than workers who do not. While large-scale survey data on wages and computer use in New Zealand are unavailable it is possible to examine the effect on wages of receiving computer-related training. The results from the 1996 Education and Training Survey suggest that there is a significant effect on wages for those workers who received some form of computer training. These effects persist even when controlling for occupation and industry, and they exceed the wage effects of training in other subjects.
Discrimination in the allocation of goods between boys and girls within households in Papua New G... more Discrimination in the allocation of goods between boys and girls within households in Papua New Guinea is examined using Deaton's (1989) outlay-equivalent ratio method. Adding a boy to the household reduces expenditure on adult goods by as much as would a nine-tenths reduction in total outlay per member, but girls have no effect on adult goods expenditure. The hypothesis of Haddad and Reardon (1993) that gender bias is inversely related to the importance of female labour in agricultural production is not supported. There is no evidence of bias against girls in the urban sector.
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