BRAIN DRAIN

This dissertation update will be abbreviated because there was more input than output this week. Spent more time poring through the key entries in the bibliography, added a couple of resources to the list, and came across a few more that I still have to process before I figure out what to do with them.

Not to mention I’m getting the ball rolling on my first proposal draft (henceforth, draft zero). From the materials I’ve gathered to date I’m of the mind that I can put something sensible together. So far, the effort’s been met with several false starts, but I intend to hammer a serviceable paper by the end of the week. Stay tuned.

A particularly busy week work-wise saw little forward progress dissertation-wise, but “little” is better than “none”.

The greater part of what I accomplished this week still lay in the annotated bibliography, to which I added the following resources:

Adams, Richard Jr. H., 2006. “International remittances and the household: Analysis and review of global evidence,” Journal of African Economies, Vol. 15, AERC Supplement 2, pp. 396-425.

_____________., 1991. “The economic uses and impact of international remittances in rural Egypt,” Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol. 39, No. 4 (Jul. 1991), pp. 695-722.

Ku, Hyejin, 2008. A model of international migration, remittances and real exchange rates. http://mailer.fsu.edu/~hku/remit-ku.pdf

Capistrano, Loradel O. and Maria Lourdes C. Sta. Maria, 2007. “The impact of labor migration and OFW remittances on poverty in the Philippines.” UPSE Discussion Paper No. 2007-06 (Diliman: University of the Philippines School of Economics).

Gheeraert, Laurent and Ritha Sukadi, 2007. “How remittances impact national accounts – A macro analysis.” Centre Emile Bernheim Research Institute in Management Sciences Working Paper No. 07/039 (Brussels: Solvay Business School).

Molina, Juan Jose F., 2006. Remittances, investment and school enrollment in developing countries. Doctoral Dissertation, Fordham University.

San Andres, Emmanuel A., 2006. “An analysis of remittance recipient bahaviour”. Paper presented at the Parallel Session on Familiar Themes, Fresh Perspectives during the 44th Philippine Economic Society Annual Meeting, 21-22 November 2006.

Tan, Edita A., 2006. “Overseas Filipinos’ remittance behavior.” UPSE Discussion Paper No. 2006-03 (Diliman: University of the Philippines School of Economics).

As it stands, I’m already quite satisfied with the materials I have on hand, so I’ll be moving on to going through them at length. Will still be on the lookout for more and better references, but from this point forward I don’t want to devote too much time on the paper chase anymore, so to speak.

Also, began hunting down data for a little side-project that I think can be accomplished before or coterminus with the dissertation. Honestly, it’s more armchair curiosity, but I might be able to make use of it somehow as it’s related to what I’m already looking into (so it can only help). Thankfully, it’s no big loss if it doesn’t quite pan out, either. Will see how it goes.

The research algorithm I employ remains mostly unchanged since college: develop an annotated bibliography of at least thirty sources, write a literature review based on that, then run in the direction of the research gap. Because the formula’s worked well for me so far I’ve never had much reason to go about things differently. Thus it’s upon these old habits I’ve come to rely as the dissertation work kicks into full swing.

Of course, I needn’t mention that back in the day I’d occasionally add the odd “source” just to pad my reference list ever so slightly. Now, though, I can’t be bothered with such intramurals: this is my dissertation we’re talking about here!

Anyway, in the course of gathering material I’ve neatly divided what I’ve come across into three categories: “macro” references on remittances in general as a worldwide phenomenon, “meso” sources studying regional remittance flows or how remittances affect countries other than the Philippines, and Philippine-specific literature, whether published here or abroad. Of course, my motivation for surveying such a broad spread in this manner is, first, to get up to speed with the current discourse on the topic, and just as importantly to find econometric models and estimates upon which further research can be based. So, yes, there is some method to my madness.

Most of the research I’ve done so far has been off the internet, which is both a boon and a curse. On the plus side it’s plenty convenient to find just the right kind of materials, what with remote access to the University library as well as any number of databases and academic search sites (here’s looking at you, Google Books and Google Scholar!). In the minus column, however, because it’s so easy to click, download and file away resource upon resource I’ve ended up with my own fair share of “research junk” that’ll take a while to process given the typical length and difficulty of academic papers, not to mention the fact that I read rather slowly.

Among the papers already saved on my computer, several have been earmarked for more thorough reading. Some I’ve gone through at length and know to be important, others I’ve scanned just enough but need more time to go through them carefully. Dispensing with my neat categories and annotations, the following are the materials that have made the cut:

Acosta, Pablo, Pablo Fajnzylber and J. Humberto Lopez, 2007. “The impact of remittances on poverty and human capital: Evidence from Latin American household surveys” in International migration and economic development, Caglar Ozden and Maurice Schiff, editors. (Washington, D.C.: The World Bank).

The Asian Development Bank, 2006. Workers’ remittance flows in Southeast Asia. (Philippines: The Asian Development Bank).

Bagasao, Ildefonso F., 2005. “Migration and development: The Philippine experience” in Remittances: Development impact and future prospects. Samuel Munzele Maimbo and Dilip Ratha, editors. (Washington D.C.: The World Bank).

Burgess, Robert and Vikram Haksar, 2005. “Migration and foreign remittances in the Philippines.” IMF Working Paper 05/111 (Washington D.C.: The International Monetary Fund).

Dakila, Francisco Jr. G. and Racquel A. Claveria, 2007. “Identifying the Determinants of Overseas Filipinos’ Remittances: Which Exchange Rate Measure is Most Relevant?” BSP Working Paper Series No. 2007-02 (Manila: Banko Sentral ng Pilipinas).

Glytsos, Nicholas P., 2005. “The contribution of remittances to growth: A dynamic approach and empirical analysis,” Journal of Economic Studies, Vol. 32, No. 6, pp. 468-496.

__________, 1993. “Measuring the income effects of migrant remittances: A methodological approach applied to Greece,” Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol. 42, No. 1, pp. 131-168.

Pernia, Ernesto M., 2008. “Migration, remittances, poverty and inequality in the Philippines.” UPSE Discussion Paper No. 0801 (Diliman: University of the Philippines School of Economics).

Rodriquez, Edgard R., 1998. “International migration and income distribution in the Philippines,” Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol. 46, No. 2, pp. 329-350.

Tabuga, Audrey D., 2007. “International remittances and household expenditures: The Philippine case.” PIDS Discussion Paper Series No. 2007-18 (Manila: Philippine Institute for Development Studies).

The World Bank, 2006. Global economic prospects: Economic implications of remittances and migration. (Washington, D.C.: The World Bank).

Yang, Dean, 2008. “International migration, remittances and household investment: Evidence from Philippine migrants’ exchange rate shocks.” The Economic Journal, Vol. 118, April 2008, pp. 591-630.

It’s clearly a long way to my thirty-source reference point, but everyone has to start somewhere. Personally, I think this is a good place to start. It goes without saying that suggestions are welcome if anyone knows of materials along the same vein. Likewise, if anyone would like to know more about these resources, I’d be more than happy to share my thoughts.

A dissertation? Serious business! Working on it? Hard! So like some people I know whose blogs evolved out of the research process (like writing a hundred words a day, say), I’ve decided to use this space in much the same way, writing a weekly update on my progress to date — or lack thereof.

To that end, these are the relevant goings on since the last time I wrote about my dissertation:

First, I’ve moved away from the behavioral finance angle in favor of jumping headlong into research on remittances. Right now, my priority is to cobble together something workable in as short a time as feasible, and remittances seem to be a better fit for me in this regard.

Second, I’ve already begun consulting one of my professors for guidance, but haven’t really had much to show as of yet. I’m still coming to grips with the relevant literature and am only now beginning to explore possible directions my research can take. I fully intend to have something more solid to go on by the time I fly back to New York before the start of this year’s academic term, which is what I’ve been working on for the past few weeks.

Personally, I feel quite optimistic (and even a bit excited) about my most recent efforts. The materials I’ve come across are plenty interesting and there are a couple of regressions I’m already itching to run at this preliminary stage. But there have been difficulties. For instance, I promised myself that I’d read at least five papers a week just to get up to speed with the topic, yet almost right of the bat I’ve fallen behind. This doesn’t worry me too much as the quality of the literature I’ve come across so far has more than made up for the shortfall in quantity. Of greater concern has been the difficulty of actually devoting time to dissertation work at all given my current work schedule. I’m sure I’ll adjust soon enough, and writing in this way about how things are going can only help as far as I’m concerned.

So that’s where things stand. By next week I hope to have a more substantial update, perhaps about the materials I’ve read so far.

Whoa! Nearly missed the boat on this one, which is right up my alley: Foreign Policy (FP), a publication of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (and completely different from the journal Foreign Affairs) recently came up with their 2008 List of Top 100 Intellectuals.

Offhand, the list could perhaps be better named, grouping “intellectuals” in the academic sense of the word together with journalists, writers of fiction and at least one US Army general. Nevertheless, it is a fascinating perspective on the luminaries who shape public discourse around the world in some shape or form.

That and it’s quite fun just going through the roster just to see how many “intellectuals” one is familiar with. In my case, only about twenty-eight of the 100 FP had identified rang a bell. Whether that makes me more or less of a nerd than I already think I am I haven’t yet figured out, but I’m leaning towards “more”.

[Foreign Policy: Top 100 Intellectuals ( 2008 ) via The Leo Africanus]

A number of circumstances conspired to get me fixated upon getting a new pair of eyeglasses. In large part, seeing the wear and tear on my existing pair did the most to convince me that I needed new ones, as did their more recent tendency to slip off if my head were inclined just so. That the optical shops in my neighborhood began their markdowns for Spring also began egging me on, to the point that I just couldn’t resist. Besides, after walking into one such store to have a look around I managed to find just the one that caught my fancy. So now I find myself obsessed — albeit mildly — on a particular pair of Oakley prescription frames.

I’ve owned a similar pair before, so knowing they can be a bit much I set out to find the best deal I could before taking the plunge. Hence, on the day I was bitten by the bug I spent a good amount of time online “window shopping”, scanning through frames of different styles and colors and comparing their prices. Unfortunately, the few that were to my liking weren’t available to order online, nor did the optical shop around the corner have them on hand, though they did offer to order it for me if I wanted. But I wanted to see what they were like for myself, so I decided to make the trip to the Oakley store in SoHo to try my luck (and have a look around, naturally).

Anyone obsessed with Oakleys would have felt like a kid in a candy store at their retail outlet. Not only were there wall to wall displays of all manner of eyewear, but they also offered an “assemble your own” option for people to customize their own lenses, not just in terms of shape of the frame or shade (and polarity) of the lenses but up to and including engraving on the lenses (if that’s your sort of thing). Unfortunately, against such a backdrop their display of prescription frames was nothing short of underwhelming, relegated to a solitary corner of the store amounting to a narrow single-column set of shelves.

They did have the frame I’d settled on, though not in the color I would have wanted, at the standard retail price of $200 even.

I decided to sleep on it first to give me some time to think it over.

On the way back to my apartment, I popped into the optical store that was willing to order it for me to see if they could offer a better deal. Their clerk asked me for the details and promptly picked up the phone and placed a call to Oakley. I could only make out half of the conversation he was having with the sales representative on the other end (”Do you have them available? Uh-huh. Okay. That long?”), from which I figured out that the pair I wanted was backordered. “And how much would it cost?” he asked. Then, “How much should it retail?” Following that exchange, the clerk thanked his counterpart, put down the phone and relayed the information to me.

“So?” I asked.

“Well, the frames are out of stock right now, but they’re expecting a delivery in the next two weeks.

“Oh, and it’ll cost $240.”

At that point I told him I’d think about it, thanked him for the trouble, and headed home.

The entire episode made me think about how shopping is really a matter of asymmetric information. No doubt that the glasses themselves must cost much less than $200 for Oakley to sell them and still make a profit; but consumers don’t know that. Naturally, the optical shop also needs to make some margin from the resale of the frames (albeit with lenses), so they tack on a value-added premium for just that reason. Yet consumers don’t necessarily know that either — unless of course they happen to have asked around at the source and done the math for themselves.

In a perfect world, informed consumers should be able to make use of this information to their advantage by browbeating (i.e., bargaining with) retailers to get what they want at the price they desire. But the world is hardly perfect, and in the end neither the Oakley outlet nor the optical shop made a sale — because I was aware of how much the frames should cost, and they didn’t know that. Score another one for consumer empowerment.

Then again, this also means that I don’t have that stylish new pair of frames I’m still obsessing over. But a hollow victory is a victory nonetheless.

Three years, sixty credits, a Master’s Degree and four doctoral comprehensive exams later, I am now officially one of the many graduate students around the world who fall under the category of “all but dissertation” (ABD).

It’s not such a bad place to be, as it is for all intents and purposes the penultimate stage to getting one’s doctorate. And from my standpoint it goes to show that everything thus far is still going according to plan. Now more than ever, the light at the end of the tunnel burns brightly, and all that remains to surmount this final hurdle is to dig in deeper and trudge on.

I will. But for now, at least, I will be content to take in the moment and enjoy it.

In relatively belated news, it turns out that the 2008 Index of Economic Freedom prepared by the Heritage Foundation/Wall Street Journal has been available online for quite some time now.

As these things go, there are some noteworthy developments in the index compared to its 2007 counterpart. Hong Kong and Singapore remain at the top of the list, with Ireland edging out Australia for the top third spot. The United States, New Zealand and Canada round out the countries deemed “free” by the index, whereas the usual suspects — Libya, Cuba, Zimbabwe and North Korea — constitute the handful of “repressed” economies that dwell at the bottom of the list. Meanwhile, China finds itself dropping several notches on the index, ranked 126th out of 162 in 2008 compared to 119th out of 161 in 2007.

The Philippines also finds itself slipping in this gauge of economic liberties. Whereas the country came in ranked 97th out of 161 and was deemed “moderately free” in 2007 based on the index, in 2008 it ranks among the “mostly unfree”, coming in 92nd out of 162 with a score that barely edges out Pakistan. As in the previous year, the index reports that the Philippines does well in terms of trade freedom, fiscal freedom, and “freedom from government” (i.e. dependence on government spending to support the economy) yet performs poorest in the areas of investment freedom, property rights and most of all freedom from corruption.

Accompanying the Index Rankings are summary reports of the findings for each country. For posterity’s sake, the following is an excerpt from the report on the Philippines:

The economy of the Philippines is 56.9 percent free, according to our 2008 assessment, which makes it the world’s 92nd freest economy. Its overall score is essentially unchanged from last year. The Philippines is ranked 15th out of 30 countries in the Asia–Pacific region, and its overall score is roughly equal to the regional average.

The Philippines scores relatively well in just two areas: trade freedom and government size. Fiscal freedom is average because income and corporate tax rates are burdensome, although overall tax revenue is low as a percentage of GDP. The average tariff rate is low, yet non-tariff barriers are significant. Total government expenditures in the Philippines are equal to roughly 20 percent of national GDP.

The Philippines is relatively weak in business freedom, investment freedom, property rights, and freedom from corruption. The government imposes both formal and non-formal barriers to foreign investment. Inflation is fairly high, and the government subsidizes the prices of several basic goods. The judicial system is weak and subject to extensive political influence. Organized crime is a major deterrent to the administration of justice, and bureaucratic corruption is extensive.

Over at the New York Times, Stanley Fish has written a thought-provoking article on the question of what use the humanities have. His answer: none whatsoever! Interestingly, if the article is to be believed — rightly or wrongly — that is not entirely a bad thing.

Even more fascinating are the reader comments in response to the missive. It’s gripping commentary that proves the internet’s worth as a venue for enlightened discourse.

Personally, I feel Archibald Macleish’s Ars Poetica argued the same point as the professor, albeit more succinctly. But that’s just little ol’ liberally educated me.

[Think Again: Will the Humanities Save Us? (Stanley Fish, via the New York Times)]

A worthy addition to the growing number of available “popular economics” titles is Robert Frank’s The Economic Naturalist. It’s a book that grew out of the Cornell Economics Professor’s penchant for asking his students to write short essays explaining the economic intuition behind fairly everyday phenomena.

The appeal of The Economic Naturalist lies in that the esteemed professor does not attempt so much to offer the run of the mill general reader on economics. Instead, he opts to demistify more ordinary occurences that we perhaps take for granted. Why is it that twenty-four hour convenience stores have locks on their doors if they never close? Why do drive-through ATMs have braille on their keypads, even if the blind can’t drive? Why is the price of brown eggs more expensive than white ones, considering that an egg is an egg is an egg? These are just some of the questions that Frank examines through an economist’s lens, resulting in discussions that are more often than not quite enlightening.

It goes without saying that the book dials down much of the rigor required by economic analysis in favor of simpler (at times even simplistic) explanations for the topics under consideration. For the most part, it is an approach that works in the book’s favor: even where Frank’s discussion may come across as a bit of a stretch — which does occur — there is at the very least some modicum of analysis being offered. Further, more “serious” readers will be pleased to know that hidden in between the often amusing and mundane questions the book tackles are some of the more weighty questions that have captivated economists, past (there are a couple based on George Ackerloff’s research, for instance) or present (such as Chris Anderson’s observation of the “long tail”, which also finds its way to the book).

Those looking for an easy and at once interesting read on economics need look no further than Robert Frank’s book. The Economic Naturalist is that rare title which manages to remind its readers that beyond the equations and graphs, economics is in fact a versatile and interesting subject to study.