The Road to the Chaco War: Bolivia’s Modernisation in the 1920s

When Bolivian and Paraguayan leaders entered into war over the contested Chaco Boreal in 1932, they unleashed powerful, violent forces that would dramatically alter history. Understanding the Chaco War as the most pivotal event in Bolivia’s modern history, this article seeks to clarify the modernisation programme that had been underway in Bolivia during the 1920s. Reforms marked the decade and intersected with and accentuated a tense political environment. The political dynamic of the years prior to the outbreak of war showed how fragile the Bolivian system was and how the global economy further eroded the government’s manoeuvrability to avoid war.     

THE IMPACT OF SKILL‐SPECIFIC MIGRATION ON REGIONAL UNEMPLOYMENT DISPARITIES IN GERMANY

Differences in regional unemployment are still pronounced in Germany, especially between eastern and western Germany. Although the skill level seems important for the relationship between regional disparities and labor migration, corresponding empirical evidence is scarce. Applying dynamic panel models, we investigate the impact of labor mobility differentiated by educational attainment of the workers on regional unemployment disparities between 2000 and 2008. The impact of low‐ and medium‐skilled migration is consistent with traditional neoclassical reasoning, suggesting that labor mobility reduces differences in regional unemployment rates. In contrast, the migration of high‐skilled workers tends to reinforce disparities.