Geographical wage differentials are large and persistent, despite large migration flows. There are also large geographical differences in welfare benefits, and policy-makers express concerns that these differences might create "welfare magnets" in some locations. We are interested in the extent to which migration flows can be explained by differentials in wages and welfare benefits.
We model individual decisions to migrate as a job search problem in which welfare benefits or other alternative sources of income act as a floor, insuring workers against bad job search outcomes. This differs from the standard job search model in which unemployment benefits are treated as a subsidy received while search continues. In our model, welfare provides a safety net in case the search fails. A worker can draw a wage only by visiting a location, thereby incurring a moving cost. Locations are distinguished by known differences in mean wages, amenity values and alternative income sources. A worker starts the life-cycle in some home location and must determine the optimal sequence of moves before settling down. There is a two-dimensional ranking of locations, ex ante: some places have high mean wages, and others have attractive fallback options (both adjusted for amenity values). In addition we allow for a bias in favor of the home location.
The current financial crisis has exposed a number of structural and functional weaknesses in the global financial system. Some consensus has been reached on the main contributing factors to the crisis, many of which have long been the focus of a subset of the investment community known as socially responsible investors. The Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) community has actively campaigned and engaged with public companies on issues such as executive compensation, transparency and predatory lending for more than two decades.
This report examines the root causes of the financial crisis from the environmental, social and governance (ESG) perspective employed by the SRI community. The report describes the progression of the crisis, places it in the Canadian context and analyzes the factors that are most relevant to socially responsible investors; namely governance and executive compensation, subprime and predatory lending, transparency and disclosure, securitization and systemic risk. It also comments on the role of regulatory gaps throughout the system.
In the United States there is a trend toward increasing physical inactivity, television viewing, use of electronic devices, and consumption of convenience foods which are high in fat and sugars. The culmination of these trends may be contributing factors to the increased prevalence of obesity throughout the United States. Body mass index (BMI) is often used as an indicator of obesity. BMI is calculated as weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared. Adults are classified as overweight or obese when their BMI is > 25 and > 30, respectively. Children and adolescents are classified as overweight or at risk for being overweight when their BMI is greater than the 95 th or 85 th percentile, respectively, as determined by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) BMI-for-age growth charts.
According to the 1999 – 2000 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) data released in 2002, 64% of adults 20 years of age and older and 15% of children and adolescents 6 – 19 years of age are overweight. This is a 10% increase for children and adolescents and a 16% increase for adults classified as overweight since the NHANES II survey conducted between 1976 – 1980. 5 Of the 64% of adults who are overweight, 31% (about 59 million people) are classified as obese. There are genetic and environmental (behavioral) factors that contribute to body composition of an individual.
