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Overseas employment has become more commonplace, and remittances have increased in similar proportions. For poor countries, remittances often substantially influence domestic expenditures and real exchange rates. We study overseas employment, remittances and domestic underemployment in a simple general equilibrium model with a non-traded good and minimum wage. The influence of population growth, rural productivity, and family altruism are examined. If remittances per migrant exceed domestic productivity then multiple equilibria may occur exhibiting high or low overseas employment. We discuss how the equilibrium with highest overseas employment conditionally Pareto dominates the other equilibria, and analyse policy co-ordination

In common with most OECD countries, unemployment in Britain has differed significantly between regions, but the persistence of relative regional unemployment rates in Britain has been, until recently, particularly striking. However, during the I990-93 recession, the relative regional unemployment pattern changed significantly for the first time in seventy years. Our primary purpose here is to understand these recent changes and to examine what might be learned about the contribution of economic policies to the amelioration of both regional unemployment rate differentials and the amplitude of regional unemployment cycles. Finally we ask whether there are any policy lessons to be drawn from the recent cycles in regional unemployment patterns which might provide insight into the amplitude of macro-economic cycles.

A two-region economy is studied in which one region has a competitive labor market whereas the other has a congested labor market in which locating a job uses resources. Workers loosing jobs in the congested region choose between migration followed by an immediate job offer and searching in the congested region. Steady-state decline of the labor force in the congested region is characterized together with equilibrium unemployment rates. Higher unemployment benefits may increase the rate of contraction of the congested market if the consequence for job matching outweighs that for migration conditional upon a given level of unemployment. Copyright 1992 by Royal Economic Society.

This paper describes and estimates a human capital model of whether unemployed workers seek retraining, and the timing of an application in an unemployment spell. The authors find that the probability of seeking retraining declines with age after twenty-seven years; with being attached to noncontracting industries; with greater contentment in unemployment compared with last job; and with union membership. Applications are increased by formal qualifications (CSE/O/A level) and decreased by vocational training, relative to no qualifications. Almost half the unemployed had sought retraining, and this was largely complete after nine months--below the mean interrupted unemployment duration. Copyright 1991 by Royal Economic Society.

Data from the 1973 General Household Survey of Great Britain are used to examine whether the council house system which currently provides a dwelling for one British family in every three tends to discourage long-distance migration. Controls are introduced for various socioeconomic variables and the importance of occupation sector of employment age and education in explaining migration is discussed. Comparisons are also made between local movements and long-distance migration. The findings indicate that over longer distances council tenants have much lower migration rates than owner-occupiers.

This paper shows that the effect of job instability on the socioecon omic structure of British unemployment is less than usually thought: groups with a high frequency of unemployment often have high prob abilities of entering unemployment should turnover occur, and not hig h turnover; high unemployment groups are as likely to experience long durations as more frequent spells. The structure of cross-section un employment is remarkably unchanged between 1973 and 1983 despite the fourfold rise in aggregate unemployment. Most significant is (1) the relative increase in unemployment among the semi-skilled and skilled manual workers and (2) the relative increase among ethnic minorities. Copyright 1987 by Royal Economic Society.

The cost to minority workers of employer discrimination is generally measured in a competitive framework which focuses upon differences in on-the-job benefits (usually wage rates) between racial groups after training and experience are allowed for, with other potential costs of employer discrimination given at best more subsidiary attention (Chiswick (i 98 I), Dex (i 984), McNabb and Psacharopoulos (I982), McCormick (i986), and Stewart (I983) have recently provided analyses of Asian and West Indian workers in the United Kingdom). This paper explores the consequences of employer discrimination if firms cannot discriminate by offering different wages for the same job, but may set higher job rejection rates perhaps costlessly because markets do not clear. Our primary focus is upon comparative journey-to-work patterns and expenditures for Asian and West Indian workers in the United Kingdom, and whether these workers accept jobs at locations that would be unacceptable to whites in order to avoid either a longer spell of unemployment or an inferior occupation with commensurate lower earnings. Thus, within a given residential area minority workers may experience greater commuting expenditures, ceteris paribus, which are overlooked when comparing earnings or occupational status. Unlike previous models of search and discrimination in labour markets, the focus is placed upon employee response to discrimination rather than the search behaviour of discriminating employers (see Lippman and McCall, I 976). The possibility that the costs of reaching suitable work-sites should be incorporated into our understanding of the problems faced by minority workers has been investigated in the United States, although in a different context, by Kain (i 964, I 968, I 980) and various other authors, including, recently, Ellwood (i983). Kain considers that the cost of housing-market discrimination is understated by focusing upon the relative price of housing for blacks, because this overlooks how obstacles to black workers obtaining suburban accommodation concentrates the supply of black labour into comparatively declining inner-city areas. Whereas Kain argues that housing-market discrimination reduces, earnings net of travel costs by creating a spatial mismatch of workers and jobs, the concern in this paper is that earnings net of travel costs are reduced because job-market discrimination may increase average journey to work distance.