The effect of traffic policing on road safety in Israel.

We use panel data on road sections to investigate the effect of traffic policing on non-urban road accidents in Israel. Traffic policing is measured indirectly by the number of police reports issued for driving offences. Our main findings are: (1) only large-scale enforcement has any measurable effect on road accidents while small-scale enforcement has no apparent effect. (2) The enforcement effect is slightly larger in the long run than it is in the short-run. (3) The effect of enforcement tends to dissipate rapidly after the dosage of enforcement is reduced. (4) Enforcement has no effect on fatal road accidents. (5) The evidence that the effect of policing in one road section spills over onto other road sections is weak.

Globalization in road safety: explaining the downward trend in road accident rates in a single country (Israel).

A theoretical model is proposed in which road safety in a single country depends upon parochial considerations, such as police enforcement, and upon global considerations, such as international road safety technology. We show that there is a non-spurious relationship between the downward trend in the rate of road accidents in Israel and the road accident rate abroad. We suggest that this reflects the international propagation of road safety technology as it is embodied in motor vehicles and road design, rather than parochial road safety policy. Recent developments in the econometric analysis of time series are used to estimate the model using data for Israel. We make no direct attempt to explain the downward trend in the rate of road accidents outside Israel.

The labour market absorption of CIS immigrants to Israel: 1989-1994.

PIP: "We use three micro data sets to investigate the absorption dynamics of CIS [the countries of the former USSR] immigrants in the Israeli labour market in the 1990s. Our findings suggest that the employment absorption process is steady, if slow. The Labour Force Survey suggests that ¿academics' experience positive duration dependence during the first four years in Israel. Vocational training did not appear to promote employment absorption. However, Hebrew training has a beneficial effect on employment absorption." (EXCERPT)^ieng

The macroeconomic effects of immigration: Israel in the 1990s.

"In this paper we try to quantify the contribution of immigration to the Israeli economy during the early 1990s. In doing so we consider the effects of immigration on key macroeconomic variables such as GDP, investment, consumption, the labor market, imports, exports and the housing market....A base-run simulation is prepared for 1990-1994 assuming actual immigration. Thereafter a counterfactual simulation is prepared assuming a reduction in immigration; the difference between the two simulations estimates the contribution of immigration to the relevant endogenous variables."

Failure to absorb: remigration by immigrants into Israel.

"Hypotheses about remigration by immigrants are investigated using longitudinal data from the 1970s for immigrants to Israel. The main finding is that experience of unemployment during the first year in Israel does not, on the whole, help predict subsequent remigration. The propensity to remigrate varies inversely with age for most groups, and it increases if the immigrant has not acquired permanent housing. Immigrants on temporary resident visas are naturally more prone to remigrate in the short run. The well-educated and the young are more likely to be temporary residents."

An indicator model of drug use in Israel.

A new methodology is proposed for measuring illicit drug activity. Factor analysis is used to estimate the factor score(s) that underlie the time series for a number of indicators that are hypothesized to be directly or indirectly related to drug activity. The factor score bears the interpretation of an index of drug activity. The methodology is implemented using data for Israel over the period 1950-1991. The methodology does not provide absolute measures of incidence or prevalence. It therefore complements rather than substitutes survey methods. On the other hand, it is cheap to apply, easy to update and most probably more objective in measurement.

Analysing morbidity determination with flawed data: the case of dysentery in regional India.

A method is suggested for removing measurement error from morbidity data collected in Third World countries. The method assumes the existence of diseases which are independent of socio-economic factors and exploits observed correlations between these disease and these factors to construct an index of measurement error. This index may be used as an explanatory variable in the analysis of other diseases which are hypothesised to have socio-economic causes which are the object of research. The method is applied to statewide data for India where the index of measurement error is based on influenza data which is then used to isolate the socio-economic factors that influenced dysentery.