JPIA Spring 2016 PDF

The Journal of Politics & International Affairs
The Journal of Politics

and International Affairs
Volume X, Issue I
Spring 2016
The Ohio State University
David Nield
Gabriel Giddens
Editors in Chief
Wesley Swanson
Managing Editor for Content
Ryan Moore
Outreach Director
Cormac Bloomfield
Alex Lappert
Cara Schaefer
Marcus Andrews
Katlyn Perani
Anna Smoot
Ridhwan Sediqe
Kasey Powers
Secretary & Treasurer
JPIA Editorial Staff
Dr. Paul Beck

Advisor
Andrea Stanic
Communications Director
Rachel Williams
Layout Editor
Erik Wisniewski
Megan Simmons
Chris Delaney
Caroline Kinnen
Thomas Graham
Christopher Davis
Lisa Hamant
A special thanks to our faculty advisors, Dr. Paul A. Beck and Ms. Christina Murphy, and The
Ohio State Department of Political Science Chair, Dr. Richard Herrmann, for guiding us and
making this journal possible.
The Journal of Politics
JPIA
and International Affiars

Volume X | Issue I | Spring 2016 | Print Edition
Contents
Chinese Perceptions of Cyberspace: Continuities
of Norms Across Realms
Partisan Differences in Pork Barrel Spending

and Legislative Productivity
24
The Relationship between Education and Inequality

in Latin America
38
Abigail Grace, Georgetown University
Jesse I. Shelburne, Harvard College
Richard Campbell, University of New Mexico
Human Capital of Middle Eastern and North African

Refugees Migrating to Europe
Daniel Peter Hogenkamp, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
54
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COPYRIGHT 2016 THE OHIO STATE JOURNAL OF POLITICS & INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Editorial Foreword

David Nield
Gabriel Giddens
Editors in Chief
Welcome,
It is our pleasure to present the Spring 2016 edition of the Journal of Politics & International Affairs. This issue
features four papers chosen out of dozens of competitive submissions from across the nation. These papers not
only provide unique research in a variety of subject areas - including international relations, political economy,
and American politics they address topics that are of considerable importance in the world today.
Our Journal, which was revived in 2011, has come a long way in terms of quality and student involvement. We
are exceptionally proud of our staff, and grateful for the contributions and cooperation from the students that
seek to gain recognition for their hard work.
This issue would not be in your hands or on your screens if not for the support of the Ohio State Universitys
Department of Political Science. We would especially like to thank Dr. Richard Herrmann for his vision and
belief in the Journal, Dr. Paul Beck for his guidance and advice, and Ms. Christina Murphy, whose assistance
and support is invaluable.
We would also like to thank you, the reader, for taking the time to view the Journal. We hope that in reading
this journal you will learn a new perspective or simply enjoy the fascinating articles. Our goal is to provide an
appreciation for the quality of social science research that can, and is, being done at the undergraduate level
nationwide. It is through you that the research contained within these pages finds meaning and stays relevant.
David Nield and Gabe Giddens
Editors in Chief
Chinese Perceptions of Cyberspace:

Continuities of Norms Across Realms
Abigail Grace
Chinese Perceptions of Cyberspace: Continuities of Norms Across Realms examines trends

on the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) conception of sovereignty in land, maritime, and the
emerging cyber arena. After utilizing a review of official government documents to identify the
key themes of territorial integrity, state control, and developing nations right to combat hegemons pre-established standards, this work then examines how these evolving norms affect
US-China Cyberspace Relations. Evidence presented in this paper suggests that as the Chinese
gain relative economic, military, and political strength, they will have greater bargaining power
to enforce their preferred rules of engagement within the international system. This will mark a
shift in the changing paradigm of Chinas role within the international system. Conclusions from
this paper indicate that due to the evolving nature of cybersecurity norms and the PRCs intense
interest in shaping this field, it is likely that China will choose cyber as a realm in which to excise this enhanced capability.
hroughout 2015, the Western media has devoted much time and effort reporting Chinas
actions in cyberspace. However, little of their work has successfully integrated Chinese per-
ceptions and norms of cyberspace. Similarly, within the scholarly body of work, there is a dearth
of substantive research on Chinese cybersecurity policy.1 While many of these shortcomings can
be attributed to the intense difficulties of analyzing the dynamic and complex inner-workings of
the Chinese Communist Party (CCP,) a qualitative analysis of pre-existing Chinese norms has the
ability to shed light on Chinas perceptions of cyberspace. However, the way in which Chinese
sovereignty norms inform their perceptions of cyberspace has yet to be answered. This paper aims
to fill that void and identify potential implications associated with Chinese perceptions of cyberspace. Conclusions will be supported by a through a multifaceted review of:

1. Chinas role within the current international system
2. The PRCs perception of sovereignty across multiple spheres
3. Chinas responses to recent US attribution of cybercrime to China
When synthesized, information gleaned from each of these dimensions will create a clearer
picture of how China perceives, and seeks to order, cyberspace. The evidence below suggests
1
Lindsay, Jon R. Introduction. In China and Cybersecurity: Espionage, Strategy, and Politics in
the Digital Domain. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
Chinese Perceptions of Cyberspace
that though cyberspace is an emerging and evolving field, traditional Chinese perceptions of
sovereignty still manifest themselves in similar ways to other dimensions; namely land, sea, and
great-power conflict.
Chinas Role Within the International System
Since the arrival of the British and the mid-19th century Opium Wars, Chinas role within the
international system has been perpetually dynamic. Beginning with a declining tribute-driven empire under Qing control, followed by the numerous civil wars in the early 20th century,
subsequently defined by Maos isolationist rule from 1949-1976, and concluding with Deng
Xiaopings Reform and Opening Up (gaige kaifang) of the PRC, Chinas foreign policy has
undergone numerous dramatic changes within the past two centuries. Each of these phases has
influenced the way in which China perceives itself as a global actor. Chinas historical position
as the leader of East Asia and former status as the center of a tribute-driven empire motivates the
PRC to declare itself to be a leader of a harmonious world, a position that encourages cooperation and collaboration among developing countries.2 The Century of Humiliation associated
with the Opium Wars and Chinas numerous civil wars displaced the PRC from its historical
position of power within East Asia. Much of Maos subsequent isolationism was rooted in the
notion that the Wests intervention in Chinese matters brought about the degradation of the Qing
empire and the subsequent Century of Humiliation.3

Deng Xiaopings subsequent Reform and Opening Up brought about a greater opportu-
nity for China to formally engage with the international community. This engagement prompted
an intense debate within the Western world concerning the nature of Chinas risethe central
question of which being whether or not China will seek to upend the current international order
or peacefully integrate itself within pre-existing structures.4 While this dichotomous view of
Chinas rise is an overly simplistic way of understanding a multi-faceted and fluid situation, there
is some merit in utilizing these broad categories to understand the Peoples Republic of Chinas
2
Rozman, Gilbert. Invocations of Chinese Traditions in International Relations. Journal of Chinese Political Science, 2012, 111-24
3
Chang, Jung, and Jon Halliday. Mao: The Unknown Story. New York, New York: Knopf, 2005.
4
For examples, see Chung, Chien-Peng. The Shanghai Co-operation Organization: Chinas
Changing Influence in Central Asia. The China Quarterly, 2004, 989-1009.
strategic intentions.5 The question of whether China is a revisionist or status quo power is
further complicated by the emergent nature of cybersecurity. While norms regarding many forms
of warfare, and other realms such as land, air, and sea have been largely addressed by bodies
such as the United Nations, norms on cyberspace have not yet been conclusively determined.
Therefore, it is more challenging to classify Chinas cybersecurity policy as either status quo
or a revisionist because a formal status quo has not yet been determined by the international
community.6

China has also sought to project its rising relative global power in international organiza-
tions. Kents China's International Socialization: The Role of International Organizations explores Chinas increasing participation and engagement with international organizations.7 Kent
concludes that, given Chinas former isolationist tendencies, their internalization and adoption
of international norms has proven remarkable. However, she posits that the PRC will continue
to position itself as a leader of developing countries and a norm-creator within the international
community. This assertion is further supported by Chinas frequent self-categorization as a developing country and its numerous broad-based statements prescribing specific policies as more
beneficial to the greater international community.8

Holistically, Chinas current role within the international system is quite dynamic. Not
only is China engaging with pre-existing international organizations, but it is also seeking to
change the norms and rules that undergird the very institutions it seeks to join. By definition, this
is a revisionist behavior. However, given the emerging nature of cybersecurity, this categorization does not necessarily hold true within this specific realm. The PRC perceives its attempts to
shape future international cybersecurity as China assuming its rightful place among peers within
the international systemnot an engagement in revisionist behavior. It remains to be seen how
5
Schweller, Randall L., and Xiaoyu Pu. After Unipolarity: Chinas Visions of International Order
in an Era of U.S. Decline. International Security36, no. 1 (2011): 41-72
6
Shambaugh, David L. China Goes Global: The Partial Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2013.
7
Kent, Ann. Chinas International Socialization: The Role of International Organizations. Global
Governance 8, no. 3 (2002): 343-64. Accessed September 5, 2015.
8
The Peoples Republic of Chinas Ministry of Defense. Chinas National Defense in 2002, Beijing, China. 2002.
The Peoples Republic of Chinas Ministry of Defense. Chinas National Defense in 2015, Beijing, China.
2015.
10
Western actors will interpret Chinas attempts to contribute to pre-dominantly Western international institutions.
Chinese Perceptions of Sovereignty
When evaluating Chinese governance of cyberspace, many have made allegations that China
is seeking to enact cyber sovereignty within its territory. However, given that cyber is still an
emerging field without established international norms of engagement, there is no universally
agreed upon definition of cyber sovereignty. Drawing comparisons between Chinas conception of sovereignty in other realms, namely land and sea, and comparing these cases to Chinese
doctrine on cyber policy, has the potential to elucidate Chinas conceptions of sovereignty and
what applicability that has for the cyber realm. Case studies of Taiwan and the South China Sea,
supported by an analysis of official Chinese state documents pertaining to cyber issues, present a
compelling argument that the PRC possesses a singular conception of sovereignty that is applied
simultaneously to all three realms.
Land Sovereignty
Chinas claim over the island of Taiwan is perhaps the most well known source of conflict between the PRC and the United States. Following the Chinese Civil War, the Republic of China
retreated to the island of Taiwan after its 1949 defeat at the hands of the Chinese Communist
Party. Since the conclusion of the war, mainland PRC has maintained a territorial claim to the island of Taiwan and insisted that the state is occupied by separatist forces seeking independence
from China. This claim to sovereignty is primarily undergirded by two rationales: 1) the Taiwanese are separatists controlling area that is rightfully the PRCs land; and 2) the Chinese Empires
past possession of Taiwan justifies its continued territorial claim over the region. In the past,
China has deployed ships to the Taiwanese Strait, issued numerous bellicose statements directed
towards Taiwan, and demanded the expulsion of Taiwan from international organizations that the
PRC participates in.9 Notably, China has lessened its aggressive rhetoric towards Taiwan as it
has become more integrated in the international system.10
9
Kan, Shirley. U.S.-Taiwan Relationship: Overview of Policy Issues. Congressional Research
Service. December 11, 2014. Accessed December 6, 2015. https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R41952.pdf.
10
Based on a review of Chinas National Defense from 2002-2015, a biennial publication released
by the State Information Council describing the state of Chinas national defense.
11
China has frequently claimed that the Taiwanese are separatists controlling area that is
rightfully Chinas territory. In Chinas National Defense in 2004, the PRC included the following
analysis of Taiwanese political activity:

The situation in the relations between the two sides of the Taiwan Straits is grim.
The Taiwan authoritieshave recklessly challenged the status quo that both sides of the
Straits belong to one and the same China, and markedly escalated the "Taiwan independence" activities designed to split China. Incessantly trumpeting their separatist claim
of "one country on each side," they use referendum to engage in the separatist activities
aimed at "Taiwan independence," [and] incite hostility among the people on the island
toward the mainlandThe separatist activities of the "Taiwan independence" forces
have increasingly become the biggest immediate threat to China's sovereignty and territorial integrity as well as peace and stability on both sides of the Taiwan Straits and the
Asia-Pacific region as a whole. 11
This claim, levied nearly half a century after the formation of Taiwan, emphasizes Chinas unwillingness to recognize that Taiwan has ever been sovereign. Rather, they view the ROC as the
inheritors of a lost war and perpetrators of a continual divide between Communist and Nationalist Chinese forces. Furthermore, China is deeply threatened by the notion that Taiwan has ever
achieved its own independence. Despite the reality that Taiwan has existed outside of the purview of Chinese control for decades, the PRC refuses to acknowledge Taiwans self-governance.
This denial is supported by the CCP depiction of Taiwans democratic efforts as separatist. The
PRC levies claims that Taiwan is not only threatening the territorial integrity of China, but it is
also a danger to the Asia-Pacific region.

China supports its claim of sovereignty over the island of Taiwan through territorial
claims that date back to the Qing dynasty. Arguing that the PRC is the rightful heir to the traditional legacy of the Chinese empire, the CCP vehemently rejects any claims of legitimacy that
the ROC makes to the Taiwan. This is partially to maintain the historic linkages between the
Qing dynasty and present-day CCP.12 The above quote from Chinas National Defense in 2004
demonstrates that the PRC tends to think first about territorial sovereignty, and second about
the freedom of individuals to determine the rules and regulations for their governance systems.
11
12
Anecdotally, these claims are supported by the absence of self-determination as a concept within
Chinese society
12
Many have argued that the separatist situations in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region and
Tibet contain similar undercurrents of Chinese disengagement with calls for self-determination in
the name of territorial sovereignty.
Maritime Sovereignty
Chinas maritime engagements also provide an interesting case study when seeking to understand
Chinese conceptions of sovereignty. International waters have long been subject to discussions
over how states can collectively administer area that is challenging to retain traditional territorial
control over and simultaneously utilized by multiple actors. China has recently come under international censure for constructing man-made islands atop reefs in the South China Sea. Notably, these reefs are located in disputed international waters without a clear determinant of which
state is in control of the region. Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, and Taiwan have
laid claims to at least part of the territory. Many onlookers have clamed that Chinese building in
the South China Sea could be directly related to their attempts to solidify claims of sovereignty
in the region. Others allege that these actions might have been taken to increase their maritime
capacity in the region and further combat US naval hegemony. 13 This is further supported by
Chinas recent increased investments in naval technology directed towards the South China Sea.
14
Overall, Chinas conception of maritime sovereignty demonstrates that the PRC is willing to
work outside of the bounds of international law to solidify claims of sovereignty and demonstrate
its stated commitment to a particular region.
Cyber Sovereignty
The case studies of Chinese disputes regarding Taiwan and the South China Sea carry numerous
and multifaceted implications. Much like disputed territories within the South China Sea, formal
declarations of sovereignty with respect to cyberspace have yet to be solidified. Chinese attitudes
toward cyber sovereignty are best encapsulated by two documents:
13
Japan Promises Ships to Vietnam amid South China Sea Fears. The Straits Times. September
15, 2015. Accessed December 6, 2015.
14
ORourke, Ronald. China Naval Modernization: Implications for U.S. Navy Capabilities
Background and Issues for Congress. November 23, 2015. Accessed December 6, 2015. https://www.fas.
org/sgp/crs/row/RL33153.pdf.
13
1. The Internet in China a Chinese White Paper issued by the Information Office of
the State Council in July 2010,
2. Cyber Doctrine issued by the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in January
2015. 15
The Internet in China provides an interesting window into Chinese administration of the world
wide web. Promoted as a tool to launch state key information network projects, fuel relevant
scientific and technological R&D, train IT personnel, and foster a market with diversified information and communication services CCP descriptions of the Internet readily highlight the positive commercial implications the Internet brings for Chinese netizens.16 The paper even goes as
far as to laud the Internet as a tool netizens can utilize to hold government officials accountable,
writing,
The Internet has become a new channel for the Chinese government to get to know the
people's situation and amass the public's wisdom, and consequently exercise governance
for the people and improve its workThe leaders of China frequently log onto the Internet to get to know the public's wishes, and sometimes have direct online communication
with netizens to discuss state affairs and answer their questions. 17
The above quote, included in a section entitled Guaranteeing Citizens' Freedom of Speech on the
Internet, was likely written to directly combat claims from Western government surrounding the
so-called Great Firewall, Chinas comprehensive internet blocks that are placed on items the
state deems harmfulillegal information on state security, public interests and minors. 18 By
painting state censorship as the removal of information unfit for public consumption, the PRC is
able to portray its careful regulation of the Internet as a tool for public good rather than an effort
to curb Chinese netizens right to free speech.

In addition to Chinas attempts to shape domestic opinion on cyber sovereignty, the PRC
has used its role as a leader in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to advance cyber norms
15
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization is a multilateral regional security organization comprised
of Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Russia, China, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan in 2001. Though China is the leading policy-maker within the SCO, the group officially operates on the principle of consensus and collective agreement.
16
The Peoples Republic of China Information Office of the State Council. The Internet in China,
Beijing, China. 2010.
17 Ibid
18 Ibid
14
favorable to the CCP within the international community. In January of 2015, the SCO issued a
letter to the General Assembly of the United Nations proposing international standards for cyber
engagement. The letter proposed thirteen standards for international norms in cyberspace; three
of these standards exhibit clear continuities between Chinese conceptions of cyber sovereignty
and the PRCs traditional notions of sovereignty:
(3) Not to use information and communications technologies and information and
communications networks to interfere in the internal affairs of other States or with the
aim of undermining their political, economic and social stability.
(5) To endeavor to ensure the supply chain security of information and communications
technologyto prevent other States from exploiting their dominant position in
information and communications technologiesto undermine States right to independent control of informationor to threaten their political, economic and social security.
(11) To assist developing countries in their efforts to enhance capacity- building on information security and to close the digital divide 19

These three claims present serious challenges to Western activities in cyberspace. Stan-
dards three and five which call for the elimination of cyber espionage and the cessation of
Western states exploitation of cyber dominance is most certainly a veiled critique of the United States National Security Agencys actions that revealed by documents released by Edward
Snowden to the general public. Though the PLA has also invested a large amount of resources
into building up its own cyber espionage capabilities, these actions have been repeatedly represented as reactionary and defensive to United States cyber dominance.20 Standard eleven,
advocating for strong states to assist developing countries IT infrastructure, harkens back to the
PRCs support of a harmonious world with China as a leader among developing countries.
The PRC recognizes that its current position as an outsider in the international system, yet a
leader in geopolitical and economic power, uniquely situates it to challenge Western norms on a
range of issues and represent itself as a leader of an emerging bloc of developing nations. This
argument is further strengthened by Chinas establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment
19
Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Letter dated 9 January 2015 from the Permanent Representatives of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, the Russian Federation, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to the
United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General, New York, USA. 2015.
20
15
Bank (AIIB,) the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO,) and its leadership among the BRIC
nations. On the whole, Chinas notion of cyber sovereignty exhibits the Chinese prioritization
of increasing the capacity of developing states, countering pre-existing Western advantages, and
ensuring that information available online is fit for public consumption and supportive of the
Chinese Communist Party.
Sovereigntys Comparative Implications
By using the PRCs inherent advantage to prioritize the collective interest of the CCP over the
individual will of specific actors, China is falling into the same notions of sovereignty that were
originally displayed in its efforts to maintain territorial control over Taiwan and disputed regions
within the South China Sea. China, willing to use all available tools, has made the calculated
decision to invest resources into the Ministry of State Security and People Liberation Armys
development of highly qualified cyber forces.21 Notable similarities between land and cyber
sovereignty include prioritizing the reduction of foreign influence and the retention of control
over domains that typically belong to the state. A lack of prioritization of self-determination is
also a continuous thread between land and cyber. Much as the PRC labels Taiwanese democratic
actions as separatist, the PRC also engages in concerted efforts to determine what information
meets the criteria for public consumption with little community engagement. In both situations,
state control is prioritized over the integration of the individuals wishes. Disputes over control
in the South China Sea and in cyberspace also contain key continuities. The Chinese navys
attempts to diminish US naval dominance in the region directly correlates to their attempts to
reduce US dominance in information and communications systems within cyberspace. Furthermore, Chinese responses to perceived incursions by the United States into the PLAs network
mirrors their bellicose reactions to the Japanese and Vietnamese presence in disputed waters. In
both instances, the PRC escalated the situation and responded forcefully. To conclude, following a review of Chinese perceptions of sovereignty within land, sea, and cyberspace, consistent
attitudes surrounding territorial control appear in all three realms.
21
The U.S.China Economic and Security Review Commission. Occupying the Information High
Ground: Chinese Capabilities for Computer Network Operations and Cyber Espionage, Washington, DC,
USA. 2012.
16
Chinas Response to US Attribution of Cybercrime

The previously identified continuities between Chinese perceptions of sovereignty with respect to
land, sea, and cyberspace are further supported by Chinese responses to US attribution of cybercrime to both the Chinese government and Chinese citizens. Two instances that occurred in 2015
reveal the role of great-power politics in Chinese behavior within cyberspace:

1. The attribution of the theft of industrial trade secrets to Chinese academicians
2. The breach of US Office of Personnel Management data containing information on
federal employees
A review of these two cases further supports the argument that cyberspaces rules of engagement
within are inherently linked to other geopolitical events and do not form within a vacuum.

In May 2015, six Chinese nationals were charged with espionage and accused of steal-
ing trade secrets typically associated with firms in the defense industry. In lieu of accepting US
attribution of these crimes to Chinese nationals, the CCP and many of its citizens vehemently
denied the claims levied by the United States and compared the attribution to a developed country seeking to further denigrate developing countries ability to compete with the technological
advantages historically held by developed countries. This response to US attribution bears many
similarities to standard number eleven in the SCO Cyber Doctrine. The Global Times, an English
news outlet supported by the Chinese Communist Party, interviewed Zhang Hao, an accused Chinese citizen.

A Chinese professor charged in the United States with economic espionage said
Chinese scholars and engineers in the United States face discrimination and absurd
suspicions from the government that they are stealing technologies.
At this time, the US government holds a pervasive, unfair view of ethnic Chinese
academics and engineers, always looking at us with the attitude of guarding against
thieves, Zhang told the paper.
They believe that coming to the US to study abroad or engage in scientific research is
tantamount to wanting to steal US technology. This is absurd.22
22
Professor Charged with Industrial Espionage in US Says It Discriminates against Chinese Scholars. South China Morning Post. October 13, 2015. Accessed December 6, 2015. http://www.scmp.com/
news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/1866890/professor-charged-industrial-espionage-us-says-it.
17
Accusing the United States of imperialist, targeting behavior, Zhang vehemently denies any
association with illegal activities. The article further relays claims made by the CCP that the PRC
itself is also a victim of cybercrime. This behavior matches Chinas exhibited preferred course
of action identified in the comparative analysis of sovereignty. By seeking to present itself as a
country held back by the developed worlds overall capacities, the PRC reinforces narratives of
sovereignty explored in the previous section.
United States OPM Breach
Perhaps the most notable cybersecurity incident of 2015, in June it was revealed that the United
States Office of Personnel Management (OPM) experienced a significant data breach in which
over 20 million federal employees personal information was compromised. While the US government never officially attributed this theft to the Chinese, multiple media reports indicated that
the PLA orchestrated the breach. As one might expect, during President Xi Jinpings September
2015 visit to the United States, cybersecurity occupied a central role in national discourse. President Xis visit brought about numerous advances between U.S.China cybersecurity cooperation. Shortly after the two leaders bilateral meeting, the White House issued a memo outlining
four advances made during their negotiations:

1. Enhanced bilateral cooperation facilitated by the timely delivery of information nec
essary to combat cybercrime.
2. A cessation of cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property and trade secrets
3. The promotion of international cyber norms as defined by the United Nations
4. The establishment of a high-level joint dialogue mechanism dedicated to fighting
cybercrime.23
Collectively, these enhanced avenues of cooperation allow the PRC to retain its initial stance as a
victim in cybercrime by committing resources to fight incursions. Additionally, the PRCs promise to cease all cyber-theft of intellectual property and trade secrets represents a large victory for
the United States.

The PRCs concession on this issue is a tacit recognition of the United States geo-polit-
23
The Executive Office of the President, White House Office, Office of the Staff Secretary. Fact
Sheet: President Xi Jinpings State Visit to the United States, Washington, DC. 2015.
18
ical power. When considering the recently announced arrest of the alleged OPM hackers which
occurred only days prior to President Xis visit to the United States, it is increasingly likely that
the PRC agreed to this point after being threatened with economic sanctions.24 However, likely
at Chinas request, the agreement included a provision to establish international cyber norms
under the purview of the United Nations. Though the UN is a body that subject to high levels of
US influence, it also retains Chinese veto authority over any standards the PRC views as hostile
or unaccommodating to Chinese norms. Additionally, Chinese media coverage of the US medias
attribution of the OPM-attack carried the same tone as the previously analyzed attribution of
trade secrets. Op-eds decried the United States for unnecessarily victimizing the PRC and attributed the motives of the recent OPM hack on information revealed by former NSA contractor
Edward Snowden.25

Crucially, the US attribution of cybercrime to the PRC has largely been met with the
same bellicose rhetoric and prioritization of CCP stability exhibited in land, maritime, and cyber
claims of sovereignty. Emphasizing Chinas status as a developing country which is preyed upon
by both criminals and developed countries, the PRCs response has been to deny attribution and
reinforce state control. Similar behaviors have been attributed in both the PRCs discussion of
Taiwan and their approach towards the South China Sea. However, in all of these situations, the
PRC has backed down from their angry rhetoric when faced with insurmountable challenges
brought forth by Western powers. The PRC has furthered this behavior of using China-led international organizations to promote policies preferable to the CCP through its engagement in
the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. As such, US attribution of cybercrime to China follows
similar patterns of sovereignty exhibited in land, maritime, and cyber realms.
Conclusion
To conclude, a careful examination of Chinas current position within the international order,
coupled with an analysis of the continuities between Chinese conceptions of sovereignty in land,
sea, and cyber realms, and supported by a review of Chinese state and media responses to US
attribution of cybercrime contains crucial implications for US and international policy-makers.
24
Nakashima, Ellen. Chinese Government Has Arrested Hackers It Says Breached OPM Database. Washington Post. December 2, 2015. Accessed December 6, 2015.
25
Yuen, Yeuk-laam. US Decision to Retaliate against China for Hack Is Immature: Analyst. Global Times. August 3, 2015. Accessed December 6, 2015.
19
At the outset, though cyber is still an emerging field with norms that have yet to be defined, it is
ill-advised to assume that these norms will not mirror previously established standards. Rather,
the evidence demonstrates that similar language patterns, points of emphasis, and international
objectives materialize across the three mediums. In all cases, the PRC is sure to value territorial
integrity, state control, and developing nations right to combat hegemons pre-established standards. The PRC views increasing engagement with pre-existing institutions and the utilization of
new international institutions as valid means to obtain their objectives on all fronts.

Analysis of Chinese responses to US attribution of cybercrime further support the previ-
ously outlined motivations of the PRC. In response to US attribution, the PRC frequently cites
their own status as a victim of cybercrime. This tactic is not only utilized to situate the PRC
among states combatting cyber attacks, it is also used to bolster its credibility as the leading
developing country creating cybersecurity policy. Perhaps most importantly, during the bilateral visit with President Obama and President Xi, the PRC ended the bilateral with a conciliatory
agreementlikely to eliminate the potential for any economic sanctions. This approach was
further supported by the subsequent news indicating that China arrested individuals allegedly
associated with the OPM breach. On the whole, geopolitical realities still play a large role in determining Chinese cybersecurity policy. When the PRC is faced with the likelihood of sanctions
by a Western hegemon, despite their aggrandizing claims throughout official policies, they still
defer to US preferences, norms, and demands.

Holistically, this dual influence of Chinese norms and Western geopolitical influence
places China at an interesting policy nexus. As the Chinese gain relative economic, military,
and political strength, they will have greater bargaining power to enforce their preferred rules of
engagement within the international system. This event will yet again mark another shift in the
ever-changing paradigm of Chinas role within the international system. In the coming years, the
PRC will be forced to make calculated decisions concerning when they choose to execute their
relatively increased global stature, and when to defer to conventional Western approaches. This
paper infers that, due to the evolving nature of cybersecurity norms and the PRCs intense interest in shaping this field, it is likely that China will choose cyber as a realm in which to exercise
this enhanced capability.
20
Author Summary
Abigail Grace is a recent honors graduate of Georgetown Universitys School of Foreign Service.
She majored in International Politics: Security Studies and received a certificate in Asian Studies. Her research focuses primarily on Chinese norms in international institutions, particularly
the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. She would like to thank Professor Kristen Looney and
Professor Samuel Visner for their guidance.
21
References
Chang, Jung, and Jon Halliday. Mao: The Unknown Story. New York, New York: Knopf, 2005.
The Executive Office of the President, White House Office, Office of the Staff Secretary. Fact Sheet:

President Xi Jinpings State Visit to the United States, Washington, DC. 2015.
"Japan Promises Ships to Vietnam amid South China Sea Fears." The Straits Times. September 15, 2015.

Accessed December 6, 2015.
Kan, Shirley. "U.S.-Taiwan Relationship: Overview of Policy Issues." Congressional Research Service.

December 11, 2014. Accessed December 6, 2015. https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R41952.pdf.
Kent, Ann. "China's International Socialization: The Role of International Organizations." Global

Governance 8, no. 3 (2002): 343-64. Accessed September 5, 2015.
Lindsay, Jon R. "Introduction." In China and Cybersecurity: Espionage, Strategy, and Politics in the

Digital Domain. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
Nakashima, Ellen. "Chinese Government Has Arrested Hackers It Says Breached OPM Database."

Washington Post. December 2, 2015. Accessed December 6, 2015.
O'Rourke, Ronald. "China Naval Modernization: Implications for U.S. Navy CapabilitiesBackground

and Issues for Congress." November 23, 2015. Accessed December 6, 2015. https://www.fas.org/
sgp/crs/row/RL33153.pdf.
2002.
2004.
2015.
The Peoples Republic of China Information Office of the State Council. The Internet in China, Beijing,

China. 2010.
"Professor Charged with Industrial Espionage in US Says It Discriminates against Chinese Scholars."

South China Morning Post. October 13, 2015. Accessed December 6, 2015. http://www.scmp.
com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/1866890/professor-charged-industrial-espio
nage-us-says-it.
Rozman, Gilbert. "Invocations of Chinese Traditions in International Relations." Journal of Chinese

Political Science, 2012, 111-24.
Schweller, Randall L., and Xiaoyu Pu. "After Unipolarity: China's Visions of International Order in an

Era of U.S. Decline." International Security 36, no. 1 (2011): 41-72.
Shambaugh, David L. China Goes Global: The Partial Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Letter dated 9 January 2015 from the Permanent Representatives of

China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, the Russian Federation, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to the

United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General, New York, USA. 2015
The U.S.China Economic and Security Review Commission. Occupying the Information High Ground:

Chinese Capabilities for Computer Network Operations and Cyber Espionage, Washington, DC,

USA. 2012.
Yuen, Yeuk-laam. "US Decision to Retaliate against China for Hack Is Immature: Analyst." Global Times.

August 3, 2015. Accessed December 6, 2015.
22
23
Partisan Differences in Pork Barrel Spending and

Legislative Productivity
Jesse I. Shelburne

Pork barrel spending has become a hotly contested form of political bargaining in recent years.
Numerous politicians have spoken out against the supposedly corrupt or shady practice, while
its proponents argue that it is a highly effective mechanism of compromise. The objective of this
paper is twofold. First, I explore the theoretical partisan differences in pork, testing the hypothesis that pork barrel spending should be higher when Democrats control Congress. I then
explore the correlation between the recent drop-off in pork barrel spending and the observed
decline in legislative productivity, testing the hypothesis that a higher level of pork results in a
greater number of bills passed by Congress. I use various statistical methods and data sets to
test for statistical significance in several regression analyses. After analyzing the results, I conclude that there is no statistical support for these hypotheses and offer possible explanations to
account for this contradiction between theoretical reasoning and empirical results.
n recent years, much of the general political perception and discussion in the United States has
revolved around Congresss seemingly unmatched ability to accomplish very little. Indeed,
the 112th Congress, which held office from January 2011 until January 2013, holds the record
for the least productive Congress since World War II in terms of number of bills passed into law
with just 284 (Ornstein, Mann, Malbin, Rugg, & Wakeman 2014). The 113th Congress followed
that performance with just 296 bills of their own, making it the second least productive Congress
in that same time span (Murray 2014). Many possible explanations for this lack of productivity have been posited, including increased partisan polarization and poor party discipline and
leadership. One possible explanation, the drastic decrease that has been observed in pork barrel
spending, has not yet been fully empirically tested.

The private organization Citizens Against Government Waste defines pork barrel spend-
ing as government spending on a project that stems from a line-item in an appropriations

bill that designates tax dollars for a specific purpose in circumvention of established budgetary
procedures. By their definition, a pork project must meet at least one of the following criteria:
requested by only one chamber of Congress; is not specifically authorized; is not competitively
awarded; not requested by the President; exceeds the Presidents budget request or the previ-
24
Partisan Differences in Pork Barrel Spending and Productivity
ous years funding greatly; is not the subject of congressional hearings; or serves only a local or
special interest (CAGW 2015). Examples of such spending include a $693,000 earmark in 2010
for beef improvement research (proposed by two Texas legislators) and a $7.2 million earmark
for the Harkin Grant Program, a program run by Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) that benefits Iowas
public schools (Scudder 2010). Pork barrel spending has long been considered a way to grease
the wheels, so to speak, using it to trade funding for pet projects in exchange for votes on more
important general interest legislation.

This source of persuasive bargaining power or legislative leverage is controversial, but
it has been a fairly common practice throughout recent decades. It is also paradoxical in that it
use[s] the sort of policy that is most reviled by observers of Congresspork barrel policy
to pass the type that is most admiredgeneral interest policy (Evans 2004). General interest
policy can be defined as broad-based measures that affect the whole nation or a large segment
thereof (Evans 2004). Such pieces of legislation are therefore inherently extremely broad in
their impact and are typically very important or landmark bills. Thus, it seems that pork barrel
and general interest legislation represent two extremes on the spectrum of types of legislation,
yet the interaction between the two can be strong and vital to the workings of Congress.

Perhaps the best and most extensive survey of the impact of pork barrel spending on
American politics is Diana Evanss book entitled Greasing the Wheels. Evans outlines and discusses several major cases in which pork barrel spending has been clearly and effectively used
by party leaders and other higher-ranking legislators to buy votes from others within the party
as well as from those across the aisle. The potential impact that pork barrel spending and deal
making can have on individual votes or specific bills is undeniable. This paper will attempt to fill
gaps in current literature by focusing on pork barrel spending and general interest legislation in
the aggregate rather than focusing only on certain bills, projects, or legislators. This paper will
look to answer two questions about the relationship between pork barrel spending and Congressional legislation. First, it will address whether the levels of pork spending change based on
which party controls Congress; namely, whether Democratic members of Congress utilize pork
spending in greater amounts than their Republican peers do to pass general interest legislation.
Then, the next section will address whether pork spending has a substantial impact on legislative
productivity in the aggregate, and whether partisan differences exist in this area of exploration.
25
Theory
The question of partisan differences in pork spending arises both from theoretical ideological
positions and from the sharp political rhetoric that surrounds this controversial practice. Democrats are often seen as the party of government, so in theory, Democratic members of Congress
should be more open to using pork barrel spending as a tool to gather votes for general interest
policy and should have fewer doubts than Republicans about the legitimacy of using federal
resources to solve problems, whether that solution comes from national policy or distributive
benefits to their districts (Evans 2004). Thus, Democrats should be less inclined in general to
see pork as a problem than Republicans, who should generally oppose pork barrel spending due
to their ideological commitment to free market economics and small government.

Indeed, such theory is often represented in practice, at least in terms of political rhetoric.
The House Republicans 1994 Contract with America manifesto is an example of Republican
opposition to pork barrel spending. Among their many pledges were a balanced budget, a Constitutional amendment limiting taxes, and the elimination of pork (Evans, 2004; Congressional
Record 1995). Even more recently, Republican legislators have vocally opposed the use of pork
barrel spending to garner support for general interest policy. In 2014, Senator John McCain
(R-AZ) held a press conference with three other Republican members of Congress in which he
praised Citizens Against Government Waste for their continued commitment to protecting the
American taxpayer by exposing billions in congressional earmarks and wasteful spending that
pose a real threat to Americas fiscal future (mccain.senate.gov 2014).

Such theory and rhetoric provide a clear hypothesis to be tested. If theory holds true,
Republican members of Congress should be more likely to oppose pork barrel spending, and
thus the levels of such spending should be lower when Republicans are in control of Congress.
Conversely, Democrats should be less likely to oppose pork, and such spending should be higher
under Democratic Congresses.

Moving to the second question relating to the actual impact of pork spending, the theoret-
ical implications of the practice are clear. Pork barrel spending is meant to fund legislators pet
projects in their home districts or states in exchange for legislative support, typically a vote in
favor of the distributors bill or policy proposal (Evans 2004). If earmarking works in the way it
should, more pork spending should result in more general interest bills being passed, as earmark
26
distribution tends to increase support for pieces of legislation. This hypothesis has some support
based on recent Congresses; House Republicans imposed a ban on earmarks in 2011, and the
next two Congresses were the least productive since at least World War II (Frost & Davis 2015).
Methods and Data
In order to test the question of partisan differences in pork spending, a few simple linear regressions as well as t-tests should be sufficient. Various regressions and t-tests were conducted
involving the number of bills passed by each Congress, the number of landmark bills passed by
each Congress, the amount of pork spending per year and per Congress, and the total amount of
federal grants given to state and local governments in a given year, both in constant (FY 2000)
billions of dollars and as a fraction of the United States gross domestic product (GDP) in that
year. Data on pork barrel spending was obtained from Citizens Against Government Waste, one
of the most popular sources of data on pork spending and congressional earmarks. The data
reveals pork barrel spending each year (which was also aggregated into two-year increments to
divide the time frame by Congress rather than by year) from 1991-2015 (102nd-113th Congresses).
27
The Brookings Institution and GovTrack.us provided data on the number of bills passed
by each Congress; this data dates back to 1947 (80th Congress; Ornstein, Mann, Malbin, Rugg,
& Wakeman 2014).
Data on the number of landmark bills passed by each Congressused as a proxy for gen-
eral interest legislationonly dates from 1991-2013 (Ansolabehere 2014). The selection of bills
that qualify as landmark or general interest may be subjective, but for the purposes of this
preliminary investigation, this data should be sufficient.
28
Finally, information related to federal grants was obtained from the White House Office
of Management and Budget and spans from 1940-2012 (White House OMB 2007). This data was
used as a proxy for pork spending in some of the regressions in order to extend the time frame
that could be analyzed.
Because actual data on pork barrel spending was not available for a long period, this data
regarding federal grants should be a sufficient proxy. States that need and/or want (and subsequently receive) federal grants are likely to be the same states whose legislators have pet projects. However, using this variable is still a potential caveat to the results of the analysis because
the potential for an imperfect proxy still exists.

Each of the aforementioned variables was used directly in the statistical analyses with
no manipulation or construction. Only two variables were constructed independently: a variable

containing the total amount of pork spending that occurred during each Congress, which was
created by simply adding the yearly pork spending for the two years that each Congress was in
session; and a variable for congressional control, whereby a Congress controlled by Democrats
was given a value of -1, a Congress controlled by Republicans was given a value of 1, and a split
Congress was given a value of 0. This variable was used both as a control variable for certain
tests and as a testable variable itself.

Based on the theory outlined in the previous section, a regression of the amount of pork
barrel spending by a given Congress on the partisan control variable should result in a statistically significant negative coefficient. Because the case of Democratic congressional control was
coded as -1 and because pork barrel spending should be higher when Democrats are in power,
the regression coefficient should be negative. A statistically insignificant coefficient would not be
definitive for or against the hypothesis, and a statistically significant positive coefficient would
29
completely contradict the hypothesis and in fact prove the opposite (that pork barrel spending is
higher when Republicans are in power). Similarly, a t-test comparing the average pork spending
under a Democratic Congress with that under a Republican Congress should yield a statistically
significant positive difference in means (which would indicate that the average amount of pork
spending under a Democratic Congress is higher than that of a Republican Congress).

For the second question, a regression of the number of bills passed by each Congress on
the amount of pork spending in that Congress should result in a statistically significant positive
coefficient, which would support the hypothesis that pork barrel spending increases legislative
productivity. A finding of a statistically insignificant coefficient would not provide clear support
for the theory and would in fact point to a lack of a substantial relationship between pork and
legislation, while a statistically significant negative coefficient would actually prove the opposite
of the theory.
Results
To explore the first question regarding partisan differences in the prevalence of pork barrel
spending, the first step was a simple linear regression in which the amount of pork spending
during a given Congress (the last row of data in Table 1) was regressed onto the party control
variable. The result of the regression was a positive but statistically insignificant (p > 0.05)
coefficient, indicating no measurable relationship between pork spending and partisan control of
Congress.

Because this pork data only dates back to 1991, a longer time horizon was also used to
test the hypothesis that pork barrel spending is greater under Democratic control of Congress.
However, as previously mentioned, in order to expand the time frame, some kind of replacement
was necessary for the actual pork variable because such data was not available. Thus, the federal
grants variables (described in Tables 4 and 5) were used as proxies in two similar regressions in
an attempt to mirror pork barrel spending. Both of these regressions yielded statistically significant positive coefficients. The results of these three regressions are summarized in the table
below.
30
The next step in testing for partisan differences in pork barrel spending was a t-test that
compared the average level of pork spending under a Democratic Congress with the average
under a Republican Congress. For this test, Congresses that were split (i.e. one party controlled
the Senate and the other controlled the House; n = 2 for 1991-2015, n = 10 for 1940-2015) were
not considered. For the data on pork spending from 1991-2015, there was no statistically significant difference in means. The proxy variables, however, yielded conflicting results: when expressed as a percentage of GDP, there was no statistically significant difference; however, when
expressed in terms of constant (FY 2000) billions of dollars, there was a statistically significant
negative difference, meaning that pork spending, on average, was actually higher when Republicans controlled Congress than when Democrats were in power.
The second questionwhether pork spending actually increases legislative productivity
and whether its impact differs based on party controlinvolved several simple linear regressions. First, the most basic regression involved the number of bills passed by each Congress and
the amount of pork spending that occurred during each Congress. Using the pork spending data
from the 102nd-113th Congress (1991-2014), this regression yielded no statistically significant
relationship between pork spending and legislative productivity (number of bills passed). The
regression coefficient was positive, but it was not statistically significant at the 0.05 level.

When this regression was broken down by party, the results of the two subsequent regres-
sions were essentially identical to the first. The first party-specific regression tested the impact of
pork barrel spending on legislative productivity only in cases where Republicans controlled both
31
houses of Congress; the same regression was then performed for cases of Democratic control.
Again, there was no statistically significant relationship between pork spending and legislative
productivity even when controlling for which party was in power at the time.
The next regressions involved the proxy data on federal grants in order to extend the time
horizon that was tested. Both of these regressions yielded statistically significant negative coefficients. The regression revealed a relationship between the number of bills passed by Congress
and the amount of federal grants in a given year. A greater amount of federal grant funding given
to states was correlated with fewer bills passed by Congress. This relationship was somewhat
substantial, showing that when federal grants increased by 1% of annual GDP, the number of
bills passed by Congress would be expected to decrease by about 75.
The final step was looking for a relationship between the number of general interest bills
passed by a given Congress and the amount of pork spending that occurred under that Congress. Given that what exactly qualifies as general interest legislation may be subjective, this
regression used as a proxy variable the number of landmark bills passed by each Congress,
with landmark classification defined by Harvard Professor Stephen Ansolabehere through his
research on public opinion, elections, and media. This landmark classification is a sufficient
proxy for general interest legislation because it encompasses bills with broad, general impact.
Again, this data covers only the 102nd-112th Congresses, which spanned from 1991-2012. Much
like the regression involving the total number of bills, this regression also revealed no statistically significant relationship between the amount of pork barrel spending and the number of landmark pieces of legislation passed by a given Congress.
32
Discussion and Conclusions

The results from these linear regressions and t-tests provide interesting insight into the questions
posed above regarding pork barrel spending. For the first set of tests related to partisan differences in the amount of pork spending, the statistically insignificant regression coefficient (as shown
in Table 6) does not support the result that was expected based on the theoretical implications
of pork. In theory, Democrats should be more inclined to see pork spending as a potential tool
for legislative bargaining and should utilize these types of earmarks more than Republicans.
However, there was no significant relationship between party and pork spending, indicating that
Democrats and Republicans are not that different when it comes to pork spending despite the
heavy-handed rhetoric that often comes from Republican legislators. The t-test revealed similar
results, noting no significant difference in the average amount of pork barrel spending that occurs
under a given unified Congress regardless of which party is in control.

Again, this is contrary to what theory would predict; however, this contradiction has been
noted at least in one specific case. When Republicans took control of Congress in the mid-1990s,
they did reduce the number of pork projects that were earmarked by Congress compared to the
previous year. However, by fiscal year 2000, the number of pork projects had increased even
beyond the number that was seen in FY 1995 when Democrats controlled the legislature (Evans,
2004). This investigation expands on this finding and fills a gap in the literature by widening the
time frame and generalizing the results.

The remaining regressions, which dealt with the second question of the effect of pork
spending on legislative productivity and partisan differences in that effect, also provided no support for the theoretical expectations. There was no statistically significant relationship between
the amount of pork spending and the number of bills passed by a given Congress. This finding is
contrary to theory, which predicted that pork barrel spending helps build support for legislation
and should thus cause an increase in legislative productivity. The relationship between pork and
landmark legislation was also not statistically significant, despite the fact that pork is thought to
33
be used to grease the wheels for broad, impactful pieces of general interest legislation.

The findings in Table 9 are also very interesting. According to that regression, there is
actually a negative relationship between the amount of federal grants to state and local governments and the number of bills passed by a given Congress. This result was in fact statistically
significant and directly contradicts the prediction that more grant money (which was used a
proxy for pork) should result in higher legislative productivity.

There are several possible explanations for these results, and these regressions and tests
certainly have their caveats and limitations. First, the actual data on pork spending only dates to
1991. The time frame that could be tested with the direct variable of interest was very limited,
and perhaps a more significant result could have been obtained with more available data. This is
related to the second caveat of these results: federal grants to state and local governments may
not be perfectly useful as a proxy variable for pork barrel spending. Regressions using federal
grants as a variable should thus be considered with caution because federal grants may not exactly mirror pork barrel spending.

Another limitation of the data and results is the disproportionate partisan control of Con-
gress. Republican control of one house of Congress, much less both houses, was comparatively
rare until recently. Indeed, Republican legislators only held a majority of seats in both houses
twice between 1940 and 1995. Overall, there were only 14 observations of unified Republican
control of Congress, whereas the Democrats had controlled both houses 49 times. This limitation
may skew or otherwise impact the data since there are relatively few observations for Republican
congressional control.

The supposed relationship between pork barrel spending and the decline in legislative
productivity that has been observed since the House of Representatives ban on earmarks may
have other possible explanations as well. One such explanation is a lack of strong leadership,
especially in the House. While the Speaker of the House is a more powerful position today than
it was in the mid-20th century, it is certainly not a position from which a legislator can simply
overpower their colleagues in the House. Many observers also blame individual speakers, especially former Speaker John Boehner, for their lack of strong leadership within their party.

Another possible (and related) explanation for the lack of legislative productivity is the
extremely high level of partisan polarization that pervades both houses of Congress today. Ideo-
34
logically, the median Republican legislator and median Democratic legislator are much further
from each other than they would have been half a century ago. This polarization implies a more
difficult path to compromise, which could contribute to the diminished legislative productivity
that has been observed in recent years.

Further research into pork barrel spending, partisanship, and legislative productivity is
certainly necessary. A more thorough investigation could potentially uncover specific data on earmarks over a longer period of time rather than the limited data that was available for this particular analysis (1991-2015). If such data were not available, perhaps a more effective or accurate
proxy variable could have been discovered and used instead of federal grants to state and local
governments, which was certainly a potential caveat to the results obtained in this research. This
investigation further illuminated a profound contradiction in rhetoric by revealing that there was
no statistically significant difference in the amount of pork spending that occurred depending
on which party controlled the majority of seats in Congress. However, this analysis also showed
no relationship between pork spending and legislative productivity, which contradicts the theoretical prediction (as well as the outright purpose) of this practice. The preliminary results from
this study contradict the arguments of many political observers who claim that the way to fix
Congress is to bring back pork barrel spending (Frost & Davis 2015). One further direction of
research could focus on this finding by incorporating more historical data as well as future data
as it becomes available.
Author Summary
Jesse Shelburne is a second year undergraduate at Harvard College studying government and
psychology. His academic interests include American and comparative politics, international
political economy, and political psychology. He would like to thank Professor Jim Snyder and
Pamela Ban for their guidance.
35
References
2015 Congressional Pig Book Summary. Washington, D.C.: Citizens Against Government Waste, 2015.
Contract with America (1994). Prentice Hall Documents Library. 1995. http://wps.prenhall.com/wps/
media/objects/434/445252/DocumentsLibrary/docs/contract.htm.
Evans, D. Greasing the Wheels. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Frost, M., and T. Davis. How to Fix What Ails Congress: Bring Back Earmarks. Los Angeles Times,

February 8, 2015, Opinion sec. Accessed December 3, 2015. http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-
ed/la-oe-frost-earmark-spending-20150209-story.html.
Kamarck, E. Why Speaker Boehner Cant Govern: Primaries, Parties, Privacy, and Pork.

Brookings.edu. September 25, 2015. Accessed December 1, 2015. http://www.brookings.edu/

blogs/fixgov/posts/2015/09/25-john-boehner-speaker-cant-govern-resigns-kamarck.
Murray, M. 113th Congress Not the Least Productive in Modern History. NBCNews.com.

December 29, 2014. http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/113th-congress-not-least-produc
tive-modern-history-n276216.
Ornstein, N., T. Mann, M. Malbin, A. Rugg, and R. Wakeman. Vital Statistics on Congress. Ch. 6:

Legislative Productivity in Congress and Workload. (2014).
Scudder, C. The 10 Most Absurd Pork Barrel Spending Items of 2010. NASDAQ.com.

August 13, 2010. Accessed December 1, 2015. http://www.nasdaq.com/article/the-10-most-ab
surd-pork-barrel-spending-items-of-2010-cm32756.
Statistics and Historical Comparison: Bills by Final Status. GovTrack.us. Accessed December 1, 2015.
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/statistics#.
U.S. White House Office of Management and Budget, The Budget for Fiscal Year 2008, Historical Tables,

Washington, DC, 2008, https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2008/pdf/
hist.pdf
36
37
The Relationship between Education and

Inequality in Latin America
Richard Campbell
I examine and estimate the relationship between education and inequality in Latin America from
2000 to 2010. Literature on inequality generally stipulates that inequality undermines economic growth; with the goal of growth in mind it is important to mitigate the factors that hinder it.
Pulling data from twenty Latin American countries, I use primary completion rates as a measure
of education and the Gini coefficient to understand the relationship between income and inequality. I use several econometric regression models to estimate the relationship of interest and use
a time series forecasting model to predict how inequality will change in the future. Estimates
indicate that there is an inverse relationship between education and inequality. Predictions
generated from the model indicate that, given the factors that affect inequality are held constant,
inequality in Latin America will continue to decrease.
ver the last few years income inequality has risen in popularity as a topic of interest. With
the publication of Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, inequality has be-
come mainstream and is seemingly on everyones minds. The rising income gap between the top
earners and the bottom earners has generated a huge amount of attention and for once all eyes are
on an issue that has plagued Latin America for decades. While the region remains one of the most
highly unequal areas in the world, inequality in Latin America has been unambiguously declining
since the 2000s. What are the reasons for this steady decline?

Research on inequality and economic growth as a whole is vast, pioneered by Simon
Kuznets in 1955 and now with Thomas Piketty, and the relationship between the two is relatively well established. The overall consensus is that inequality is generally harmful to economic
growth (Delbianco et al., 2014). Economic growth is a fundamental force when we attempt to
reduce poverty due to increases in labor demand as well as wages (Abida et al., 2012). Abida
et al. conducted a study using North African countries to understand the relationship between
income inequality and growth and found that the long-run growth elasticity of income inequality
is negative and significant. This implies a significant negative relationship between growth and
initial income per capita.

Overall, research suggests that inequality is bad for economic growth, and that econom-
38
Education and Inequality in Latin America
ic growth is one of the most powerful forces aimed at reducing poverty. For Latin America, a
region ravished by poverty and considered the most highly unequal region in the world (Tsounta, 2014), these are pressing matters that directly influence the quality of life of the region. This
exemplifies the importance of identifying the underlying relationships between inequality and the
factors that affect it.

There appears to be significant research assessing the change in inequality, some of which
looks closely at the interaction between education and income inequality. Most of the research
tends to point to concept known as the paradox of progress. This paradox of progress is the
trend that there is an inverse relationship between inequality of education and income inequality.
More simplistically this says that as education inequality falls or as aggregate educational attainment increases, income inequality initially rises but then starts to fall (Lustig et. al, 2013). These
findings are generally a result of an unchanged skill premium which, when educational upgrading occurs, there is a resulting increase in inequality.

Gasparini et al (2005), using research conducted in Buenos Aires found that as returns
to education increase, a widening in the wage gap can be expected. In addition, they find that
the gender wage gap has narrowed which has increased income inequality as well. Since female
workers are concentrated among higher earning individuals they find this increase in income
inequality. However, since low income females receive proportional income increases, the
overall effect of the changing wage gap is ambiguous (Gasparini et al., 2005). Another way they
assessed the change in inequality is through weekly hours of work. While they found a clear
decrease in hours worked, this change was not uniform across all workers. Most of this decrease
in hours was from workers with low levels of education, the result of which would have unequalizing effects on income inequality. Finally, Gaparini et al. analyzed education and found a mild
effect on the increase in inequality, suggesting the earlier trend that is the paradox of progress.

Other research examining changes in wage inequality in 1990s Latin America finds
changes with tremendous implications for human capital accumulation. During the 1990s the
wage differential between higher and intermediate education increased and was accompanied
by a decrease in the wage differential between intermediate and basic education (Binelli, 2008).
Intuitively, the results spell an increasing wage gap between upper and lower parts of the income
distribution. Additionally, using data collected from Mexico between 1987 and 2002, Binelli
39
(2008) finds approximately a twenty-two percent decrease in the share of workers with basic
education, paired with a relative demand for workers with more than basic education (Binelli,
2008). Further research in the underlying causes of wage inequality suggests that the increase in
returns to education accounts for much of the increases in wage inequality from 1973 to 2003
(Lemieux, 2006). More specifically, dramatic increases in returns to post-secondary education
present growing evidence that changes in wage inequality are focused about the upper end of the
income distribution. The increasing returns to post-secondary education in conjunction with the
significant increase in the demand for highly-skilled, highly-educated workers suggest that the
demand for low skilled, low-education workers has barely changed (Lemieux, 2006).

Alternately, existing studies suggest that a reduction in the returns to education (skill
premium), accounts for much of the decrease in income inequality (Lustig et al., 2013). Studies
suggest that declines in hourly labor income inequality are driven by the returns to education or
skill premium (Lustig et al., 2013). Out of sixteen countries that demonstrated an overall decline
in inequality, the majority had decreases in the return to education (Lustig et al., 2013). Lustig et
al (2013), suggests five causes for the decrease in skill premium: reduction in demand for skilled
workers, increase in supply for skilled workers, increase in minimum wage and unionization
rates, mismatch in demand and supply of skills, and a degradation of tertiary education. Each of
these potential causes benefit unskilled and lower-education workers, possibly incentivizing a
lower skill premium which has an equalizing effect on the income distribution. The causation for
this decrease in skill premium has not been established unambiguously in the literature.

Much of the literature seems to lean towards the idea that at some point the returns to
education become so great that it actually generates wage inequality and therefore income inequality. Changes in demand exacerbate this issue as is seems that there has been a well-defined
increase in the demand for workers with higher levels of education, which allows simple supply
and demand models to tell us that employers are willing to pay these workers higher wages.
Econometric analysis of inequality finds that well designed policies can account for more than
half of the decrease in income inequality in Latin America (Tsounta, 2014). From the Tsounta
analysis it appears that higher education spending is the most important factor, leading to approximately 25% of the decline in income inequality (Tsounta, 2014). Additional contributing factors
include increased foreign direct investment and higher tax revenue (Tsounta, 2014). More specif-
40
ically, changes in tax revenues are found to be negatively correlated with changes in income inequality (Tsounta, 2014). This shows increases in tax revenue are associated with decreases in income inequality, often times as a result of a more progressive tax system. Taxing higher-earning
parts of the income distribution more than the lower parts redistributes wealth in a manner that
supports the results of the paper. Along the same lines of changes in tax revenue, the data suggest
a negative correlation between changes in income inequality and government spending (Tsounta,
2014). All of these findings appear to be consistent with strong economic fundamentals, which
falls in line with further findings that show a small reduction associated with the appreciation of
exchange rates.

This paper will attempt to add to current literature by analyzing trends in education
attainment and levels of inequality. I will investigate trends specifically within Latin America
to either find evidence of the paradox of progress or general trends in decreasing or increasing levels of inequality as a product of education. Ultimately, the goal of this paper will to be to
recommend trends in educational policy in Latin America for the purpose of reducing income
inequality.
Data
The data I used to conduct my analysis was pulled from Gapminder.org, from which I used two
basic indicators to assess inequality and education. To analyze education I used the primary
completion rate. This measure is found by taking the total number of students in the last grade of
primary school minus repeat students, and dividing by the total number of children of the specified graduation age. As for the measure of inequality, I used the Gini coefficient which measures
to what extent the distribution of income among individuals or households deviates from a perfectly neutral distribution. More specifically we measure the area between the Lorenz curve and
a hypothetical line of perfect equality. Due to limitations in the data I used statistics from twenty
Latin American countries from 2000 to 2010, the countries used are the following: Argentina,
Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Perfect information regarding each country is nearly impossible for each year, in order to
approximate both the primary completion rate and Gini coefficient for all twenty countries I took
41
an aggregate mean for each year from, 2000 to 2010. Graph 1 and Graph 2 illustrate the trends
that arise using the aggregate means found from the data over the period from 2000 to 2012.
Graph 1
Graph 2
Using the means found as the new data set for my analysis I found descriptive statistics for each
variable, the results of which are displayed in Table 1 and Table 2.
42
Table 1 Table 2
Descriptive statistics across the ten year data set yielded an aggregate mean of 94.11% primary
completion rate and a median of 93.54%. When we look at the statistics for the Gini coefficient
the aggregate mean is approximately 51.12 with a median of 52.09. The descriptive statistics
found indicate relatively high levels of education in children over the ten year period in tandem
with high levels of inequality.
Models
To analyze the data I used a few models to examine both the validity of the relationship between
education and inequality, and to attempt to forecast future levels of inequality in Latin America.
I generated multiple models to find one that best fits the data as measured using the R2 value to
compare the various models.
43
Model 1: Simple Linear Regression Model

The first model used followed a simple regression formula using our aggregate primary completion rate (PCR) as the independent variable (Xt) and aggregate Gini as the dependent variable
(Yt). Setting up the model we use the ordinary least squares method given the data set

we assume the relationship between the independent variable xi and the de-
pendent variable yi is linear. We observe this relationship through an error term typically denoted
by . From this the typical model presented as:
our model takes the form:
where is the y-intercept of the regression line, is the slope of the regression line, and is
some error term assumed to be equal to zero. Running this simple linear regression yields the
following equation:
The slope of 39.6395 is significant at the = .05 significance level with a standard error of
13.717752. Following the same format, the y-intercept is 89.42781 significant at = .001, with a
standard error of 12.914582. The model also generated a R2 value of 0.48127 as the coefficient
of determination. The model implies that as the primary completion rate increases the Gini score
decreases.
Model 2: Multivariate Lagged Regression Model
The second model takes the simple linear regression model and attempts to account for a lag that
may exist between time t = 0 and t = 1, 2, or 3. This rests under the assumption that our independent variable (PCR) can influence our dependent variable (Gini) through time. The very nature
of this assumption establishes causality in the direction of the independent variable since it is
impossible for actions in the future to impact the past. Causality would normally not be achieved
through simple regression as it is theoretically erroneous to assume that one variable causes another, explained as correlation does not imply causation.

This lagged multiple regression model assumes a similar form as the last model, however,
44
the nature of the model attempts to capture the relationship between the dependent variable and
each of the independent variables. Since the original data only contained one independent variable, I created three more by lagging the original independent variable by an additional year until
data limitations inhibited additional lagging. The model takes on the following form:
filling in the variables and the appropriate time constraints yields the completed equation:
Running the model using the same data but lagging the independent variable by varying degrees
of time yields the completed equation:
The multivariate lagged regression model resulted in no significant coefficients at any normally
accepted level of significance with the exception of the y-intercept, which was significant at an
= .01 significance level. The dependent variable lagged at t - 3 resulted in the most significant
coefficient at -0.56021 with a t-statistic of -1.84039 and a P-value of 0.162974. Additionally,
95% confidence intervals confirm that none of the dependent variable coefficients are statistically
significant from zero. Finally, the R2 value was 0.832373 showing that the model actually very
closely models the data; however, due to the lack of statistical significance it is less impressive.
Model 3: Lagged Linear Regression Model at t - 3
The lagged linear regression model follows the same format as both the simple linear regression
model and the multivariate lagged regression model. To create this model I take the lagging format as the multivariate model denoted as:
Using my results from the previous model, after finding that the coefficient for the t - 3 lagged
variable was more statistically significant than the remaining variables, I test to see if the t - 3
lagged variable has a statistically significant relationship with the Aggregate Gini. Just as in the
previous model, this one implies causality based on the properties of time. Using these assumptions, I then adapt the lagged model to the form as the simple linear regression model. Henceforth, the lagged linear regression model takes the form:
45
Replacing the variables with the chosen independent and dependent variables then gives the final
equation:
Running the regression model and lagging the primary completion rate by three years results in
the following completed equation:
The coefficients for the lagged linear regression are both significant at a standard significance
level of = .01. The y-intercept () has a t-statistic of 8.406929 and a P-value of 0.000154, while
the slope of the regression line has t-statistic of -4.74227 and a P-value of 0.003184. Confidence
intervals indicate that each coefficient is statistically significant from zero; the standard error for
the y-intercept is 14.09303 and for the slope it is 0.151612. The results of the regression outputs
a value of 0.789393, this signals a fairly close fit between the regression line and the actual data.
Similarly to the first simple linear regression the model implies that as primary completion rates
increase lagged by three years, the Gini coefficient of the present (untransformed) year decreases
and is statistically significant.
Model 4: Times Series Forecast
The final model is focused on analyzing time series data to extract meaningful statistics from the
data. In addition, from this model I attempt to predict future inequality outcomes based on the
previously observed data. The time series model is built from the data set notated as
and rests under two conditions: the stationary process and ergodic process. Stationary process
specifies that the joint probability of the distribution is not affected by a shift in time, crucial for
the time series model. More formally, we can define this mathematically as

implying that the cumulative distribution function is not
affected by time. Ergodic process refers to the ability to find statistical properties of process by
using a single sample of the process. Examples of this include: ,
where the mean of
X is the expected value of the function X(t). With these assumptions the time series model can be
built. The typical time series autoregressive model takes the form:
From this model I conduct a time series regression of the dependent variable (Yt), our Gini
46
coefficient. In order to conduct the time series I assume ceteris paribus of the relationship
of all variables and the conditions that we observe of Yt. In addition, due to the lack of data
I base the regression on a period of two years so that the moving average of the data becomes .
Using the typical model we can compress the equation of the model down to
Where is the y-intercept, is some error term assumed to be zero,
and is the slope of the time series regression line at time t - i. From this we can model the data
and forecast into the future. Filling in the terms with the variables from the data gives the equation the final form of:
Using the model, I run the regression in Excel and observe the following equation for the completed regression line:
The standard errors for each of the coefficients are as following: for the y-intercept is it
0.52388940and for the variable t, as a measure of time starting at year 2000, was 0.0772433. The
y-intercept was significant at a significance level of = .01, with a t-statistic of 103.5673883.
The variable representing time (t) is significant at the same alpha level with a t-statistic of
-4.676411047, and a P-value of 0.001158. In addition, the confidence interval generated from the
regression indicates that the slope of the regression line is statistically different from zero. The
R2 value for the regression is 0.708444, suggesting that the model fits the data fairly closely.

Additionally, I extend the model further for two more years, which is the length of the
period chosen for the time series autoregression. In order to do this I assume that the seasonality
of the data is the same for each portion of the period, Year 1 and Year 2. Based on the consistent
seasonality and using the same trend line, multiplying the two yields the forecast results.
Results
I present a table of the values for each of the models in same order as listed in this paper. The
values are obtained from Excel, and specify the significance levels of * for the table as well as
how *s represented in the models for the previous section.
47
Table 1
Table 2 provides information on how well the given regressions fit the data as given by
the R2 value and a measure to compare across models using the R2 value. Using this measure of
comparison, it is apparent that the lagged linear regression model fared the best with a R2 value of 0.75429. This implies that the model using lagged values yields a statistically significant
relationship that more closely fit the data than the outstanding models. The relationship expresses that when primary completion rates increase by 1%, approximately three years later the Gini
coefficient decreases by a factor of 0.71899 or 0.71899% based on the data acquired for Latin
America. The lag implemented by the model establishes time-linear causality across the given
time period of 2000 through 2010.
48
Table 2
Additionally, the graphs for each of the regressions computed using the respective coefficients
listed are in Table 1 and given below.
Simple Linear Regression (SLR)
49
Multivariate Lagged Linear Regression (MLLR)

Lagged Linear Regression (LLR)
50
Time Series Regression
Graphically I display the original aggregate Gini (Yt), the center moving average of Yt, and the
results of the model with a prediction in to the year 2012 at time 13.

Ultimately, while the results are statistically significant for many of the models and seem
to provide insights into the issues presented, adjustments to the methods can be made. Aggregating the countries as a means of assessing Latin America as a whole doesnt capture the individual
variation for each country. It is possible that there exists a heterogeneity of effects that are not
understood through the mechanisms used. Using matrix algebra it would be possible to identify
the individual differences to confirm or reject the aggregate findings on a country-by-country
basis.
Conclusion
From 2000 to 2010 the aggregate Gini coefficient of the twenty countries from the data set declined as the aggregate primary completion rate increased during the same time. The decline in
inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient was statistically significant when analyzed through
a variety of models. The results of the regressions when compared to each other identified that
51
by lagging the primary completion rate by three years; the resulting linear regression was highly
significant and shows an inverse relationship. The model implies more generally that as the aggregate primary completion rate increases the aggregate Gini coefficient decreases, signaling that
higher educational attainment may lead to lower levels of inequality. In addition, by applying the
concept of ceteris paribus and running a time series forecasting model, it is possible to predict
that inequality will continue to decrease in the coming years.

I can conclude from the relationships obtained and forecasts made from the various mod-
els, if a reduction in inequality is a desired outcome, then maintaining current policies or those
outlined by Tsounta et al. and, promoting educational attainment are necessary. Policies should
be focused on removing the barriers to education that are presented to low-income groups as well
as eliminating gender differences in educational attainment. Furthermore, an increase in foreign
direct investment contingent on policies of this nature could continue to reduce inequality in this
region. Further research should be done using alternative models of greater complexity to identify the natural variability that exists among countries as well as the individual factors that influence inequality in the context of robust educational policies.
Author Summary
Richard Cole Campbell is a senior at the University of New Mexico studying Economics and
Psychology. His research interest include the topics in development economics as well as the
development of a rational decision model contingent on individual variation. He would like to
thank Dr. Matias Fontenla for his guidance on this project and Dr. James Cavanagh for his help
in the future.
52
References
Abida, Zouheir and Sghaier, Imen Mohamed. Economic Growth and Income Inequality: Empirical Evidence from North African Countries. Asian Economic and Financial Review, 2, issue 1 (2012):
142-154.
Battistn, Diego, Garca-Domench, Carolina and Gasparini, Leonardo. Could an Increase in Education
Raise Income Inequality? Evidence for Latin America. Latin American Journal of Economics-formerly Cuadernos de Economa, 51, issue 1(2014), p. 1-39.
Delbianco, Fernando, Carlos Dabs, and Mara ngeles Caraballo. INCOME INEQUALITY AND
ECONOMIC GROWTH: NEW EVIDENCE FROM LATIN AMERICA. 33, no. 63 (July 2014):
381-398.
Grimm, Michael. The Microeconomics of Income Distribution Dynamics in East Asia and Latin America. 54, no. 3 (April 2006): 754-758.
Lemieux, Thomas. Postsecondary Education and Increasing Wage Inequality. American Economic Review 96, no. 2 (May 2006): 195-199.
Lustig, Nora, Lopez-Calva, Luis and Ortiz-Juarez, Eduardo. Deconstructing the Decline in Inequality in
Latin America. Working Papers, Tulane University, Department of Economics , no. 1314 (2013):
18.
Soto, Marcelo. (2002), Rediscovering Education in Growth Regressions, OECD Development Centre
Working Papers, No. 202, OECD Publishing, Paris.
Tsounta, Evridiki, and Anayochukwu Osueke. What is Behind Latin Americas Declining Income Inequality?. IMF Working Papers, International Monetary Fund, no. 14/124. (2014): 35.
53
Human Capital of Middle Eastern and North African

Refugees Migrating to Europe
MENA higher education privatization, MENA labor market skills mismatches,
and the MENA Refugee Crisis
Daniel Peter Hogenkamp
This paper will examine the origins of the Middle Eastern and North African (MENA)
and European Refugee Crises. We will investigate why MENA refugees emigrate to Europe as
well as MENA refugee human capital levels by performing econometric analysis on original
Middle Eastern University Data, the German Anabin University Data, World Bank Migration
Data, and World Bank Development Indicators. We will answer specific questions relating to recent MENA higher education expansion, higher education privatization, higher education quality controls, MENA macroeconomic growth, the MENA labor markets skills mismatch, MENA
unemployment, and recent MENA emigration to Europe.

We find that MENA higher education privatization significantly expanded the number
of MENA universities as well as the number of MENA college graduates, but likely lowered the
quality of MENA higher education. We find that an increased number of MENA graduates has
led to a regional labor market skills mismatch and this mismatch has subsequently led to high
unemployment, especially for youth. We find that high MENA unemployment has encouraged
displaced MENA residents (especially those with college degrees) to seek asylum outside of the
MENA region in Europe. We additionally find that a disproportionate number of MENA refugees to Europe possess college degrees, but that the quality of these degrees often falls below
Western standards.

his paper will explore the following questions (listed from macro to micro):
1. What does the MENA economy, labor market, and high-skilled labor market look like?
2. How has the MENA labor market integrated refugees?
3. Why are MENA refugees migrating to Europe?
4. What is the human capital level of MENA refugees migrating to Europe?
5. How can European nations best accommodate MENA refugees into their labor markets?
Hypothesis
This paper hypothesizes that:
1. The MENA national university privatization policies over the past thirty years have
54
Human Capital of Refugees Migrating to Europe
rapidly expanded the number of colleges and greatly reduced the quality of MENA higher
education.
2. Rapid MENA higher education expansion has far outpaced labor market demand for
college graduates, created the MENA skills mismatch and led to high unemployment and
low labor force participation amongst college graduates and youth.
3. MENA higher education labor market saturation has discouraged MENA nations from
resettling and or economically integrating MENA refugees, usually Syrian or Iraqi, in any
formal sector.
4. The utter lack of regional labor opportunities for highly educated MENA refugees has
helped foster MENA to Europe migration.
5. A disproportionate number of MENA emigrants (European immigrants) possess
college degrees but many of these degrees fall short of European standards.
Data
This project compiles data from several different sources into one cohesive data set, the MENA
Higher Education Data Set (MHEDS). The MHEDS Data Table presents the data sources that
led to different variables in the MHEDS, and the Data Sources section briefly discusses the data
source, the data gathering process, and the data cleaning process.

Before the data table discussion, I discuss why I chose to represent only fourteen MENA
nations in the MHEDS dataset. MENA macro-data incurs severe geo-political and economic
limitations in data collection. The Barro-Lee Educational Attainment Dataset notably omitted
Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza, and Oman. Those three nations also incurred low data collection between 1960 - 2010 to a point where their inclusion in the MHEDS dataset prohibited
accurate statistical analysis. Consequently, I chose to include only the following fourteen MENA
nations:
Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, UAE, Yemen. Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority were notably not included in the dataset
because no data in two or more of the following databases existed for the two governments.
55
Data Table
Data Sources
Barro- Lee Education Data
The Barro-Lee Data provides educational attainment data from 1950 to 2010 for 146 countries,
disaggregated by sex and by 5-year age intervals. It also details the distribution of educational
attainment of the adult population over age 15 and over age 25 by sex at seven levels of schooling no formal education, incomplete primary, complete primary, lower secondary, upper
secondary, incomplete tertiary, and complete tertiary. The data set also measures schooling at the
primary, secondary, and tertiary levels for each country and for regions in the world.
56
The Barro- Lee Education Data was accessed to obtain educational attainment data for
fourteen MENA nations. Data on educational participation, completion, and gender in five year
intervals was also gathered to describe all fourteen MENA nations educational progressions. The
data required relatively little cleaning.
Anabin MENA University Data
The German Anabin database recognizes and evaluates foreign educational qualifications and institutions in English to provide insight to German Universities as they solicit foreign academics.
The database assesses foreign university degrees, university entrance qualifications, intermediate
levels of education, and qualifications from the professional field. The database has been built
over the last ten years and documents 180 countries, over 25,000 institutions, 22,000 university
degrees, 25,000 individual case reports, 5,800 vocational qualification entries, and 1,500 secondary school leaving certificates. The Anabin database exists to provide German universities with
data on other world universities for exchange programs, study abroad applications, and international hiring. The database lists registered universities in most countries around the world and
provides a ranking, on a three-point scale,1 of the universitys reputation as well as the universitys founding year. Although the Anabin database is highly regarded, many of the Francophile
MENA country registries double-list the same universities under their French, Arabic, and or
English names. Consequently, I double checked all of the Anabin data with individual national
registries.

I gathered data from the Anabin MENA University Data by downloading country specif-
ic university-data from the website to an excel document. I went through all fourteen nations
higher education registries, listed out every one of the nations accredited universities, the universitys ranking, the universitys status as private or non-private, other unique attributes, and the
universitys founding date on a comprehensive MENA University dataset.
1
The three-point scale consists of three ratings H +, H +/-, H -. H + indicates a university accredited both in its home country and in Germany. H +/- denotes a university that is either not recognized
in the host country or in Germany, and/or a university where some students are accredited and others are
not. H demonstrates an institution that should not be considered a university because it is a) not considered a university in the host country, or b) not a place of higher education the education is at the
secondary level by German standards.
57
World Bank World Development Indicators

The World Bank WDI collects 214 world economy development indicators from officially-recognized international sources. It presents the most current and accurate global development data
available, and combines national, regional and global estimates. I gathered information on six
general economic and nation-specific indicators from the World Bank World Development Indicators Database that required very little cleaning.
World Bank Global Bilateral Migration Database
The World Banks Bilateral Migration Database presents migrant stock matrices from 1960
to 2000. The Database also separates data by gender and relies on the foreign-born concept of
migration; for example, a person qualifies as a Jordanian migrant to England if they were born in
Jordan and reside in England. The data represents a collection of over one-thousand census and
population records, which are recorded every ten years.

I gathered international migration related data from the World Bank Global Bilateral
Migration Database. The Global Migration Database occurrs in ten-year time intervals and in
country specific values. I cleaned and organized this data into four migrant indicators total
migration, total migration to gulf states, total migration to OECD nations, and total migration to
the European Union.
Polity Database
Polity IV scores measure the democratic nature of 167 governments from 1946 to 2013. Polity
IV represents indicators such as factionalism, important Polity change events, autocratic backsliding, executive auto-coup or autogolpe, revolution, collapse of central authority (state failure),
and successful military coups. I gathered government and democracy related data from the Polity
IV dataset but only selected two variables.
Higher Education Graduate Survey (HEGS) Data
The Higher Education Graduate Survey (HEGS) takes into account a random sample of university graduates aged 25-40 years who graduated in the fifteen years before the survey took place.2
2
Higher Education Graduates Survey (HEGS) - Economic Research Forum (ERF). Economic
Research Forum ERF. 2012. Accessed February 01, 2016. http://erf.org.eg/higher-education-gradu-
58
The survey gathers information on socio-economic backgrounds, household characteristics, education experiences, job experiences and history of graduate employment. The study also includes
graduate feedback on both private and public institutions, as well as labor market outcomes
depending on the institution and the graduates learning experience. I only used the HEGS data
to run preliminary analysis on how MENA education levels affect MENA income levels.
Methods
Scarce MENA macroeconomic and refugee-related data prevents us from testing all five of our
hypotheses through econometric, time-series regressions. The Final Discussion section will
analyze the last two data-scarce hypotheses through quantitative and qualitative methods. The
following Econometric Analysis section will describe how we plan to test our first three hypotheses through econometric analysis:

1. Did MENA privatization policies expand private universities?
a. The fourteen MENA nations analyzed by this survey all took steps to privatize
their higher education system between 1960 and 2010. I first questioned
whether MENA privatization policies brought about their intended effect an
expansion of private colleges and universities. To do this, I employed a time series
regression that tested the effects of privatization on total private universities and
held constant both year and individual nation trends. I also utilized an event study
that set privatization policy implementation year to zero and graphically analyzed
the growth in different types of MENA universities over time.

b. This model utilized a Fixed Effects model because the assumptions of a random effects model do not hold with the MHEDS panel dataset. The random
effects model requires the country specific time-invariant unobservable trends to
remain uncorrelated with the independent variables in the model. However, in
terms of the MHEDS data, country-specific time-invariant unobservable trends
affected the expansion of MENA private universities. For example, the UAEs
discovery of oil greatly expanded the UAE Higher Education System, and Nasserism and Arab Nationalism brought about MENA-wide higher education expan-
ates-survey-hegs/.
59
sion as nations took charge of their futures. Because nation and time variables are
not independent of the targeted privatization effect, I used the less efficient, but
necessary, fixed effects model, where we assume the independent variables affect
targeted control and dependent variables.
c. (log Private Universities) it = aitt + (Privatization) it b + vi + eit
i. Where aitt = country specific time-trend constant, b = beta
how much the independent variable shifts the dependent variable from the
intercept, vi = estimated fixed effects, eit = error of independent and dependent variables
2. Did an expansion in private universities lower university quality?

a. Many MENA economists hypothesize that MENAs rapid expansion of private
universities with low accreditation measurements led to a boom of low quality
higher education degrees, especially at private universities.3 To test this hypothesis, I utilized a time series regression that analyzed the effects of private university expansion on private university and general university quality. I again held
constant both year and individual nation trends.
b. (log Private University Quality Index) it = a + (Privatization) it b + vi + eit
3. Did an expansion in private universities expand labor force participation, reduce
unemployment, or improve private returns to higher education?
a. States incur numerous incentives to expanding higher educationincreasing
national human capital levels to attract businesses, creating young entrepreneurs,
educating a new generation of national leadership, and fostering a more politically
informed electorate. At the most basic level, states hope to create more productive
citizens and train these citizens to meet current labor market demands. Consequently, the success of privatization and expanding university access manifests
itself in increased labor force participation rates and decreased unemployment
rates.
3
Rugh, William. Arab Education: Tradition, Growth and Reform. Middle East Journal 56, no. 3
(2002): 396.
60
b. (log LFPR)it = a + (Private Universities) itb + vi + eit
c. (log Unemployment) it = a + (Private Universities) itb + vi + eit

4. Did an expansion in private universities expand migration and or remittance rates?
a. MENA migration and remittance rates have risen in recent years, and I tested
the effects of private university expansion on both MENA migration and MENA
remittances, holding constant both year and individual nation trends.
b. (log Migration) it = a + (Privatization) itb + vi + eit
c. (log Remittance) it = a + (Privatization) itb + vi + eit

Econometric Analysis & Results
Question 1: Did MENA privatization policies expand private universities?
MENA privatization policy shifts caused a greater number of MENA private universities to
be created at a statistically significant level after holding constant time and individual national
61
trends. The following graphs display the time trends of private, public, and total universities for
all fourteen MENA nations in relation to each national privatization policy shift.
62
63
The following event study superimposes each nations private university growth on an event
study graph where the privatization policy shift occurs at T0. The event study allows us to
compare post-privatization policy university growth between nations while holding time trends
constant.
64
Question 2: Did an expansion in private universities lower university quality?
The privatization of MENA universities insignificantly affected the Anabin University
quality index. These results likely stem from the lack of high-quality private universities before
the national privatization policies, which effectively cut the dataset by over half from 1960
to 2010 to 1990 to 2010 and decreased our statistical certainty. Our statistical certainty also
lacked due to flaws in the Anabin data, which ranks universities on a three-point scale, limiting
our datas variation and making it more difficult for our model to predict with certainty.

However, if we look at other literature and analyze the data graphically, it appears likely
that privatization policies diminished university quality. In Education Quality in the Middle East,
David Chapman notes that Low quality of education is a primary concern and one of the greatest challenges facing education and government leaders across the region.4 Higher education
scholars at UNESCO worry that opening higher education to international markets will create
4
Chapman, David W., and Suzanne L. Miric. Education Quality in the Middle East. International Review of Education Int Rev Educ, 2009, 311-44.
65
quality standard concerns and lead to diploma mill institutions that exploit the public.5 The
following event study and graph combination display the growth in low quality6 universities after
privatization policies. The first graph superimposes low quality private university growth at the
privatization policy shift of T0.
5
49.
6
Martin, Michaela. Cross-border Higher Education: Regulation, Quality Assurance and Impact.
Schools receiving a rank of H+/- or H- on Germanys Anabin University Database.
66
Question 3: Did an expansion in private universities expand labor force participation, reduce
unemployment, or improve private returns to higher education?
MENA private university expansion significantly raised national unemployment and
insignificantly lowered labor force participation rates for the age adjusted 15-64-year-old population. These results return weak Bit (private universities on log unemployment or labor force
participation) coefficient values because a few nations responsibly expanded private universities
with high academic standards and numerous quality controls Bahrain, Kuwait, Egypt, and
Libya. Unfortunately, other nations like Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen rapidly expanded private universities with no quality controls and incurred large increases in low-quality private
universities. The following displays national private university trends while drawing quality
distinctions.
67
In order to isolate the fixed effect time series regression to nations that irresponsibly
expanded private universities of dubious quality, we ran a regression testing the effects of only
dubious quality private universities on log unemployment and log labor force participation rates.
68
Question 3.1: Did an expansion in dubious quality private universities expand labor force participation or reduce unemployment?7
In the more specifically tailored regression, we find that the MENA expansion of
low-quality private universities raised region-wide unemployment by 26.3% at the 99% confidence level. The expansion of low-quality private universities carried an insignificant negative
effect on regional labor force participation rates.

These results could explain two causality stories: 1) the expansion of low quality private
universities over-educated MENA residents and led to high unemployment, or 2) private universities expanded to take advantage of the high number of unemployed MENA youth who sought a
higher education to improve their job market viability.

The following model will lag dubious-quality private university expansion to test the cau-
sality hypothesis that university expansion affected unemployment and labor force participation.
7
Because unemployment data for MENA nations began in 1990, we limited the data for unemployment-related regressions to 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, and 2010 cross sections.
69
Question 3.2: Did low quality private university expansion raise unemployment and or lower
labor force participation or did high unemployment and low labor force participation spur an
expansion of low quality private universities?
70
71
The eight models found only two significant results: 1) that an increase in unemployment
now lowers ten-year-future low quality private university growth, and 2) that an increase in labor
force participation now lowers five-year-future low quality private university growth. These results intuitively contradict each other and lend no credence to either causality explanation, leaving open the possibilities of the following MENA economic storylines. MENA nations may have
misjudged their future labor market demands, over-educated their populations, and created a
deep economic skills mismatch. MENA regimes may have educated their citizenry as a means of
appeasing societal unrest, and knowingly over-educated their population. Alternatively, MENA
citizens could have sought higher education to improve their private returns to education. The
following graphs display private returns to education in three MENA nations using cross-sectional Higher Education Graduate Survey (HEGS) Data from 2010.
72
Question 4: Did an expansion in private universities expand migration and/or remittance rates?
73
Privatization policy shifts held an insiginifanct effect on remittance and migration growth
on a MENA-wide level. The MENA migration and remittance picture, with respect to the expansion of low-quality private universities, likely proved too complex to draw any MENA-wide
conclusions. As seen in the following national time series graphs, individual geo-political events
and vastly divergent regional economies led to inconsistent consequences of private university
expansion.
74
75
Final Discussion
Because our project was constrained by scarce or outdated MENA macroeconomic data and the
recentness of the MENA refugee crisis, we were only able to thoroughly test our first three hypotheses using econometric analysis. Our final discussion seeks to test the hypotheses that:

1. The utter lack of suitable regional labor opportunities for highly educated MENA
refugees helped foster MENA to Europe migration.
MENA nations clearly face anti-refugee and anti-migrant sentiments. Nations like Jordan, Turkey, and Lebanon already struggle with crippling unemployment and low labor force participation rates.
Although many MENA countries shied away from accepting refugees and/or migrants
early in the Syrian conflict,8 the wars escalation and additional conflict in Iraq forced the is8
Malsin, Jared. Why Some Arabs States Refuse to Accept Syrian Refugees. Time. September 8,
2015. Accessed February 10, 2016. http://time.com/4025187/arab-states-syrian-refugees/.
76
sue. As of February 2016, over four million Syrian and four million Iraqi refugees have fled
their home nations and sought refuge in neighboring MENA nations, and more than 6.6 million
Syrians and 3.3 million Iraqis remain internally displaced and in need of assistance. 9 10 Despite
domestic economic troubles and difficult internal politics, Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon, and Egypt
stepped up to host the millions of refugees. Because of their domestic constraints, and the possibility of Syrian and Iraqi conflict resolution, MENA refugee host nations rarely integrated Syrian
and Iraqi migrants into their economies. In fact, Jordan, Lebanon, and Egypt either legally ban
or effectively ban all refugees from obtaining legal working permits. There is no official refugee
labor legislation in Jordan, and a recent ILO study found that 1.7% of Syrian refugees in Jordan
have work permits and 99% of Syrian refugees work outside Jordans labour regulations and in
the informal economy.11 Any refugee registering with UNHCR in Lebanon for protection must
sign a no-work agreement that restricts them from ever working in a formal job.12 Egypt only
grants working permits if a refugee finds an employer to sponsor them and is assured that the
employer did not overlook any qualified Egyptians in the hiring process.13 In January of 2016,
the Turkish government finally ended the ban on Syrian refugee working permits, allowing refugees to obtain work permits after a 6-month waiting period and limiting the percent of refugees a
business can hire to 10%. 14

Desperate for work, Syrian and Iraqi refugees flooded the informal labor market. Despite
legal barriers, skills mismatches, and physical trauma, 27-28% of Syrian refugees participate in
the Jordanian labor force as compared to 42% of Jordanians.15
9
UNOCHA. Iraq. United Nations Office of Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. February 6,
2016. Accessed February 10, 2016. http://www.unocha.org/iraq.
10
UNOCHA. Syrian Arab Republic. United Nations Office of Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs. February 6, 2016. Accessed February 10, 2016. http://www.unocha.org/syria.
11
ILO Regional Office for Arab States. Work Permits for Syrian Refugees in Jordan. International
Labour Organization. 2015. Accessed February 9, 2016. http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---arabstates/---ro-beirut/documents/publication/wcms_422478.pdf.
12
Bobseine, Haley. How Lebanons Residency Rules Facilitate Abuse of Syrian Refugees. Human Rights Watch. August 2015. Accessed February 09, 2016. https://www.hrw.org/report/2016/01/12/ijust-wanted-be-treated-person/how-lebanons-residency-rules-facilitate-abuse.
13
Syria Needs Analysis Project. Legal Status of Individuals Fleeing Syria. Syria Needs Analysis
Project. June 2013. Accessed February 9, 2016. http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/legal_status_of_individuals_fleeing_syria.pdf.
14
Murray, Don. High Commissioner Welcomes Turkish Work Permits for Syrian Refugees. UNHCR News. January 17, 2016. Accessed February 09, 2016. http://www.unhcr.org/569ca19c6.html.
15
Hillesund and Stave. Impact of Syrian Refugees on the Jordanian Labour Market. 43.
77
This rapid expansion of the informal worker labor supply curve rapidly decreased infor-
mal sector wages 25% of Syrians outside of camps and 61% of Syrians in camps make less the
Jordans foreign worker minimum wage as well as raised unemployment.16
16
Hillesund and Stave. Impact of Syrian Refugees on the Jordanian Labour Market. 46.
78
Although college educated and/or vocationally trained Syrians had willingly entered the
informal labor market at the beginning of the Syrian Civil War and the MENA refugee crisis, the
ever-lowering wages and working conditions, combined with the continued conflict in migrant
sending nations (Syrian, Iraq, etc.), has led high-skilled migrants to seek work outside of their
original asylum-granting nations and increasingly flock to more developed economies.17
17
Dumont, Jean-Christophe, and Stefano Scarpetta. Migration Policy Debates. OECD. September
7, 2015. Accessed February 10, 2016. 8. http://www.oecd.org/migration/Is-this-refugee-crisis-different.
pdf.
79
2. A disproportionate number of MENA emigrants (European immigrants) possess college degrees but many of these degrees fall short of European standards.
From a micro-economic approach, one would expect the highest-skilled Syrian and Iraqi refugees to depart MENA refugee camps and MENA refugee centers first, assuming that their expectation of higher wages would lead them to forgo decreasing informal sector wages before other
refugees. Moreover, higher-educated and higher-skilled workers typically have greater savings
than less educated refugees, and can pay the expensive trans-Mediterranean migration fees to
smugglers, which often run between $2,000 and $3,000.18

The limited data on the human capital levels of arriving refugees supports these theoret-
ical explanations. According to Swedish Government Officials, 40% of arriving Syrians possess
at least an upper-secondary education or higher, while as of 2010.19 20 And, according to Germanys Institute of Employment Research, 15% of Syrians refugees possessed a vocational training
or university degree as compared to 5.7% of Syrians who had some form of tertiary training
(vocational or university degree) in 2010.21 European and German businesses have supported
the rapid integration of MENA Refugees due to what they perceive as high skill levels. German
manufacturing giants Volkswagen, Daimler, and Porsche have openly praised the skill level of
incoming refugees, advocated German politicians to open their borders, supported local refugee
resettlement, and matched employee refugee donations.22 Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche suggested
that many of those displaced by war, persecution and poverty are highly skilled and motivated,
and may be just what the economy needs.23

18
Bodrum, and Tripoli. Time to Go. The Economist. September 26, 2015. Accessed February 09,
2016. http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21667953-who-leaving-europe-and-whytime-go.
19
Bodrum and Tripoli. Time to Go.
20
Barro, Robert, and Jong-Wha Lee. A New Data Set of Educational Attainment in the World.
Educational Attainment Dataset, August 30, 2014. Accessed January 27, 2016. http://www.barrolee.com/.
21
Delcker, Janosch, and Matthew Karnitschnig. Refugees Wont Plug German Labor Gap. POLITICO. 2016. Accessed February 10, 2016. http://www.politico.eu/article/refugees-wont-plug-germanlabor-gap-asylum-employment-skills-gap/.
22
Bloomberg. VW, Daimler, Porsche Embrace Refugees, See Fix to Future Labor Shortages. Automotive News Europe. September 19, 2015. Accessed February 10, 2016. http://europe.autonews.com/
article/20150919/ANE/150919847/vw-daimler-porsche-embrace-refugees-see-fix-to-future-labor-shortages.
23 Bloomberg. VW, Daimler, Porsche Embrace Refugees, See Fix to Future Labor Shortages.
80
Although Syrian refugees to Europe are most likely more skilled and more educated than
Syrians remaining in Europe, these attainments dont always translate to European standards.
Comparative education studies indeed find that primary and secondary MENA education lags
behind European standards. For example, according to the OECD, an eighth grader in Syria
shared a similar education level to a third grade German.24 Moreover, at least one third of Syrian
college graduates attended universities that earned low quality marks on Germanys internationally recognized Anabin University database. These universities were either not recognized as a
university in the host country or in Germany. Only 2.0% of Syrians held university degrees in
2000; the higher education growth to 2.6% of the population by 2010 depended almost solely on
the growth of these low quality private institutions.

24
Delcker and Karnitschnig. Refugees Wont Plug German Labor Gap.
81
More than just low quality higher educations, many education experts share concerns
over the MENA educational systems public sector orientation.25 Large, oversaturated public
sectors steer higher education incentives to train bright MENA students towards stagnant public
sector jobs instead of dynamic private-sector jobs. In Pissarides and Vganzons 2007 paper on
human capital in the MENA region, they find that Total Factor Productivity (TFP) the amount
of a laborers output not explained by their human capital inputs and a measure of how efficiently someones human capital is used in production trended lower in MENA nations than in
OECD or Eastern European nations.26 They suggest that low MENA TFP may be due to the fact
that human capital in MENA has suffered either from low quality or from a misallocation that
diverted it from employment in growth-enhancing activities.27 MENA nations either fostered
low quality human capital instruction schools and apprenticeships or their human capital
was misallocated in a way where laborers were unable to maximize their productivity.
25
Bhattacharya, Rina, and Hirut Wolde. Constraints on Growth in the MENA Region. Washington,
DC: International Monetary Fund (IMF), 2010. 5.
26
Pissarides, Christopher, and Marie Vganzons -. Labor Markets and Economic Growth in the
MENA Region. London School of Economics Pissarides Papers. January 2005. Accessed February 10,
2016. 7. http://personal.lse.ac.uk/pissarid/papers/MAVJan05.pdf.
27
Pissarides and Vganzons. Labor Markets and Economic Growth in the MENA Region. 8.
82
From a European perspective on the MENA refugee crisis, it is important to differentiate
the specific cause of low MENA TFP, especially amongst the skilled labor force. The Syrian
and Iraqi refugees that received inadequate higher education or vocational degrees from one of
Syria or Iraqs 12 and 20 low quality private universities, which constitute around 38% of national universities in both nations,28 should be viewed as partial college graduates, who could easily
become qualified European degree-holders through supplementary or translational coursework.
The Syrian and Iraqi refugees that received high-quality education, which constitute about 62%
of each nations universities, suffer low TFP due only to inadequate job placement. European
economies can improve these workers productivities by better aligning their human capital with
employment demands.
Conclusion
Although constrained by scarce MENA macroeconomic data and the recentness of the MENA
and European refugee crisis, we successfully tested the following hypotheses:
1. The MENA national university privatization policies over the past thirty years have
rapidly expanded the number of colleges and greatly reduced the quality of MENA higher
education.
This paper concludes that privatization policies rapidly expanded the total number of universities and especially private universities. A MENA nations university privatization policy led to a
36% increase in log private universities at the 99% confidence level, with country and time trend
effects held constant.

Whether privatization and the expansion of private universities lowered the overall qual-
ity of MENA universities is less clear. Our regression analysis and results were limited by the
relative non-existence of pre-privatization private universities, rendering our results statistically
insignificant. However, through analyzing the datas limitations, general trends, event studies,
and other graphical representation, it is clear that privatization led to a rapid and disproportionate
growth of low-quality universities.29
28
Data gathered from Anabin University Database.
29
In this case, low quality universities were determined through Germanys Anabin Database as
universities with a H+/- grade or below. The H+/- grade represents universities that are either not accredited by Germany or by the host country. H universities are completely unaccredited.
83
2. Rapid MENA higher education expansion has far outpaced labor market demand for
college graduates, created the MENA skills mismatch, and led to high unemployment and
low labor force participation amongst college graduates and youth.
It proved difficult to quantify the existence of a MENA skills mismatch between tertiary educated workers and employers. The best estimate of the MENA skills mismatch relies on Total Factor
Productivity (TFP) estimation done by Pissarides and Vganzons in 2007, which sets forth a
general trend in how efficiently MENA employers use MENA laborers existing human capital
levels. Pissarides and Vganzons found that MENA economies tend to utilize their workers
human capital in a much less efficient way than OECD and or Eastern European economies,30
although these results are likely due to both a labor market skills mismatch and the relatively
lower quality of one year of MENA schooling as compared to the rest of the world. As expected
in nations with high skills mismatches, MENA nations face much higher unemployment rates
and lower labor force participation rates than similarly developed economies.31 It is evident that
MENA nations face a greater skills mismatch, especially for skilled laborers, than their European
and or similarly developed counterparts.

As to whether MENA university privatization policies and rapid private university expan-
sion alleviated or exaggerated the MENA labor market skills mismatch, I conclude that private
university expansion exaggerated the MENA labor market skills mismatch. Private university expansion raised region-wide unemployment by 6.8% at the 90% confidence level and the specific
expansion of low-quality private universities raised region-wide unemployment by 26.3% at the
99% confidence level. Private university expansion had no statistically significant effect on regional labor force participation rates, but labor force participation rates trended lower as private
MENA universities gained prominence.
3. MENA higher education labor market saturation has discouraged MENA nations
from resettling and or economically integrating MENA refugees in any formal sector
(usually Syrian or Iraqi).
30
Pissarides and Vganzons. Labor Markets and Economic Growth in the MENA Region. 7.
31
ILO. World Employment Social Outlook. International Labour Organization. 2015. 19. Accessed February 10, 2016. http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/---publ/documents/publication/wcms_337069.pdf.
84
This paper concludes that due to abnormal regional unemployment, and especially high unemployment amongst highly educated workers seeking formal employment, MENA nations
surrounding Iraq and Syria would not survive the political ramification of opening their labor
markets.
Consequently, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, and Turkey (until 2016) all effectively banned
the formal employment of MENA refugees and relegated all refugees, regardless of skill level, to
informal sectors with ever deteriorating wages and working conditions.
4. The utter lack of regional labor opportunities for highly educated MENA refugees
helped foster MENA to Europe migration.
Highly skilled MENA refugees, restricted to low-wage informal sectors, rationally began seeking
asylum in nations outside the MENA region with formal sector job openings, namely, European
nations. Germany possesses over one million open jobs on its own.32
32 Eurostat. Ob Vacancies in Number and % - NACE Rev. 2, B-S, Quarterly Data.
85
It is clear that the MENA to Europe migration surge directly stemmed from a lack of for-
mal labor opportunities in MENA refugee host nations.

5. A disproportionate number of MENA emigrants (European immigrants) possess college degrees but many of these degrees fall short of European standards.
This paper concludes that a disproportionate number of MENA emigrants are highly skilled
college or vocationally educated but that their qualifications and degrees often fall below
European standards. First, while only 18% of Syrians had completed at least an upper-secondary education in 2010, 40% of Syrian arrivals in Sweden had completed at least an upper
secondary education. While only 5.7% of Syrians in 2010 possessed a tertiary degree, 15% of
86
Syrians in Germany possess a tertiary degree.33 34 European industrial leaders have testified as
to higher than expected skill levels of arriving refugees.35 This could patially be due to the fact
that MENA-to-Europe migration remains limited to those who can afford the $2,000 to $3,000
trans-Mediterranean smuggler fee higher-skilled MENA workers likely have higher savings.

Although MENA refugees to Europe are better educated and more likely to have degrees
or training, these certifications often do not directly translate or fall below European standards.
38% of Syrian and Iraqi universities either lack domestic or international accreditation, and
MENA education curriculum trains students for antiquated public sector professions instead
of modern labor market demands.36 In general, high skilled MENA laborers incur lower Total
Factor Productivity (TFP) coefficients, although these results are partly due to misallocation of
human capital and not to lower quality human capital.
Recommendations
After better understanding why MENA refugees migrated to Europe and the level of human capital possessed by MENA refugees to Europe, we recommend that:37
1. The EU and the UN refuse to recognize and fund asylum-granting nations that do not provide
MENA refugees with the right to work and access formal labor markets within one-month of
arrival.
2. That the EU recognize the elevated human capital levels of MENA refugees through expanding funding for the European Job Mobility Portal (EURES) and stipulating that refugees and
migrants register for the EURES when seeking asylum or in European host nations.
3. That EU nations automatically grant asylum or residence to refugees or migrants that are
hired to fill EURES job openings.
33
World Bank Global Development Indicators
34
Dumont, Jean-Christophe, and Stefano Scarpetta. Migration Policy Debates. OECD. September
7, 2015. Accessed February 10, 2016. 8. http://www.oecd.org/migration/Is-this-refugee-crisis-different.
pdf.
35
Bloomberg. VW, Daimler, Porsche Embrace Refugees, See Fix to Future Labor Shortages. Automotive News Europe. September 19, 2015. Accessed February 10, 2016. http://europe.autonews.com/
article/20150919/ANE/150919847/vw-daimler-porsche-embrace-refugees-see-fix-to-future-labor-shortages.
36
Bhattacharya and Wolde. Constraints on Growth in the MENA Region. 5.
37
I presented on and or work-shopped many of the following recommendations at the 2016 European Student Conference at Yale University in New Haven Connecticut.
87
4. That the EU use the Anabin college database and MENA university experts create a list of
degree equivalencies to certify qualified MENA graduates and to grant collegiate transfer credit
to less-qualified MENA graduates or disrupted, refugee university students.
5. That EU universities act to accommodate the disproportionately large number of disrupted,
refugee university students 10,000 out of 800,000 Syrians 38 through new scholarship funds,
grants, and affirmative admission.
6. That the EU locate and hire refugee and migrant medical professionals to provide native-language healthcare to incoming refugee and migrant populations.
7. That the EU should work with EU labor unions and local governments to create programming that informs incoming refugees and migrants of EU labor laws, workers rights, and possibilities to collectively bargain.
8. That EU nations specifically address the economic integration of female migrants through the
provision female-led and female-only language and professional courses.
9. That the EU should provide resources to help refugee and migrant host nations teach their
native language to incoming refugees. And, the EU should create a unified EU program similar
to Teach for America, that funds EU college graduates to teach EU languages to sizable refugee
and migrant populations.
10. That MENA nations implement private university quality controls to regulate the rapid
expansion of low-quality private universities opening in the MENA, and to force institutions
advertising themselves as accredited universities to provide university-quality educations.
Author Summary
Daniel Hogenkamp is a Senior Economics and Arabic major at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill interested in Middle Eastern Relations and International Refugee Rights. He
would like to thank his Honors Thesis Advisor, Professor Jeremy Moulton, and the European
Students Conference 2016 for help on his Thesis.
38
De Wit and Altbach. The Syrian Refugee Crisis and Higher Education. 1.
88
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The Journal of Politics & International Affairs

The Journal of Politics

The Ohio State University

JPIA Editorial Staff

Dr. Paul Beck

The Journal of Politics & International Affairs

The Journal of Politics

and International Affiars

Partisan Differences in Pork Barrel Spending

The Relationship between Education and Inequality

Abigail Grace, Georgetown University

Jesse I. Shelburne, Harvard College

Richard Campbell, University of New Mexico

Human Capital of Middle Eastern and North African

The Journal of Politics & International Affairs

The Journal of Politics & International Affairs

Chinese Perceptions of Cyberspace:

Chinese Perceptions of Cyberspace: Continuities of Norms Across Realms examines trends

1. Chinas role within the current international system

2. The PRCs perception of sovereignty across multiple spheres

3. Chinas responses to recent US attribution of cybercrime to China

Chinese Perceptions of Cyberspace

The Journal of Politics & International Affairs

Chinese Perceptions of Cyberspace

The Journal of Politics & International Affairs

Chinese Perceptions of Cyberspace

The Journal of Politics & International Affairs

2. Cyber Doctrine issued by the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in January

Chinese Perceptions of Cyberspace

The Journal of Politics & International Affairs

Chinese Perceptions of Cyberspace

Chinas Response to US Attribution of Cybercrime

1. The attribution of the theft of industrial trade secrets to Chinese academicians

2. The breach of US Office of Personnel Management data containing information on

The Journal of Politics & International Affairs

1. Enhanced bilateral cooperation facilitated by the timely delivery of information nec

essary to combat cybercrime.

2. A cessation of cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property and trade secrets

3. The promotion of international cyber norms as defined by the United Nations

4. The establishment of a high-level joint dialogue mechanism dedicated to fighting

Chinese Perceptions of Cyberspace

The Journal of Politics & International Affairs

Analysis of Chinese responses to US attribution of cybercrime further support the previ-

Chinese Perceptions of Cyberspace

The Journal of Politics & International Affairs

Chinese Perceptions of Cyberspace

The Journal of Politics & International Affairs

Partisan Differences in Pork Barrel Spending and

ing as government spending on a project that stems from a line-item in an appropriations

Partisan Differences in Pork Barrel Spending and Productivity

This source of persuasive bargaining power or legislative leverage is controversial, but

The Journal of Politics & International Affairs

Partisan Differences in Pork Barrel Spending and Productivity

The Journal of Politics & International Affairs

Partisan Differences in Pork Barrel Spending and Productivity

no manipulation or construction. Only two variables were constructed independently: a variable

The Journal of Politics & International Affairs

Partisan Differences in Pork Barrel Spending and Productivity

The second questionwhether pork spending actually increases legislative productivity

The Journal of Politics & International Affairs

Partisan Differences in Pork Barrel Spending and Productivity

Discussion and Conclusions

The Journal of Politics & International Affairs