USING A COMPOSED ERROR MODEL TO ESTIMATE THE FRICTIONAL AND EXCESS-SUPPLY COMPONENTS OF UNEMPLOYMENT

ABSTRACT We present in this paper a plausible and simple method of estimating the two components (frictional and excess supply) of unemployment. This approach uses a stochastic model whose error term is composed of two elements–the usual two-sided error and a one-sided error. Our method has several strengths. First, we are able to explicitly model the universally held view that there is a nonzero lower bound on unemployment. Second, we can easily determine whether each region's unemployment rate is caused primarily by excess supply or frictional forces. We illustrate our technique on a data set comprised of all 50 states over the period 1960-1979. Finally, estimation of the frictional rates of unemployment allows us to analyze, in the last part of the paper, the underlying economic and demographic determinants of differences in frictional unemployment rates across states and over time.     

Securing the Return: How Enhanced US Border Enforcement Fuels Cycles of Debt Migration

Expanded border enforcement has made unauthorised migration to the US more risky, costly, and prone to failure. Research on the material consequences of border enforcement for migrant‐sending households in Central America reveals that the economic hardships enforcement exacts on migrants at times diminishes enforcement's desired deterrent power. Heightened risks have driven up the cost of migration and pushed many to fund their trips through loans. Consequently, migrant detention, deportation, or death can result in poverty and privation for indebted households and the seizure of loan collateral, typically homes and land, in turn prompting crises in household reproduction. With a US wage the most viable means to ameliorate economic hardships, enforcement outcomes push some to return migration. Our findings suggest that US border enforcement efforts at times perpetuate the very unauthorised migration they seek to impede, while also helping to reproduce the border itself by deepening the marginalisation that drives migration decisions.     

Plant microfossils in human dental calculus from Nemrik 9, a Pre-Pottery Neolithic site in Northern Iraq

Samples of dental calculus were taken from 11 human individuals buried at Nemrik 9, a Pre-Pottery Neolithic site in Northern Iraq. All of them represented the time span of ca. 9100–8600 bp. In total, 95 microfossils were retrieved from these samples, including 70 phytoliths, 9 starch granules or clusters of starch, 3 pollens, and 1 xylem fragment. Most microfossils could be attributed to C₃ cool season cereals, most likely wheat and barley, which is consistent with previous knowledge about the composition of crops in early farming communities living in the Fertile Crescent. In addition, three phytoliths and one starch granule typical of C₄ warm season grasses were recovered including one subangular and faceted starch granule, which might derive from a native grass, but is not diagnostic of any genus. Prior to assigning diagnostic status to this starch, exhaustive reference work on native grass seeds is necessary. The presence of one Phragmites phytolith suggests non-alimentary processing of reeds using teeth or perhaps using the stem of this grass as a toothbrush or toothpick.     

The Hawke government and education 1983–1985

Education was a major component of the platform and performance of the Whitlam governments. Under Fraser, projects were abandoned and overall growth ceased. The needs principle for aid to non‐government schools was undermined by the emphasis on unrestricted access to alternatives to the State system. Pressure grew for schooling to reflect and service the needs of the market place.

The 1983 election campaign scarcely mentioned education although special interests ensured that traditional commitments were secured. Once in power, the Hawke government tended to ignore these and maintained constraints on education spending.

Naive attempts in 1983 to implement the policy of reducing grants to wealthy private schools resulted, by 1984, in a bruised and shaken Hawke government having to placate the powerful private school/Catholic bishops lobby with a generously funded ‘historic settlement’ of the State Aid debate. The Participation and Equity Program was introduced to increase participation in post‐compulsory education, particularly by disadvantaged groups. Initially the depressed state of tertiary education was not addressed by the Hawke government which continued the neglect characteristic of the Fraser years. Hawke was returned to office in 1984 on a platform which had as little to say about education as it had in 1983.

The rhetoric and practice of the Hawke government has tended to reflect a view of education which is highly economic and instrumental in orientation. A crude nexus is seen to exist between educational spending and productive employment, a view which excludes any concern for the social benefits of education or a longer‐term perspective about the value of intellectual endeavour. Labor's traditional ideals and objectives of widening access to education and hence social and economic power are in danger of being ignored. If economic considerations alone continue to dominate policy, the legacy of the Hawke government may well be a set of educational policies which are destined, on balance, to increase rather than reduce inequalities in our society.