What are the causes of the reversal in Mexican migration into the US?

Both the FT and LA Times report on this development.

Money quote from the LA Times:

Between 2005 and 2010, 1.4-million Mexicans immigrated to the United States, less than half the number that migrated from 1995 to 2000. At the same time, the number of Mexicans and their children who moved to Mexico in the same five-year period rose to 1.4 million, about double the number that did so from 1995 to 2000.
The estimates are based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau and on Mexican census data. The most recent data indicate that the historic flow of migrants into the U.S. might even have started to reverse.

Both papers attribute the phenomenon at least partially to immigration politics and unemployment within the US.  The FT mentions in passing “improving economic conditions” in Mexico. It would be interesting to take a fine grain look at the labor economics of Mexico to gain a better understanding of how much of this demographic shift is coming from our Neighbor to the South.

External versus Internal

One of the tricky issues in running an institute is the balance between the external (fundraising, friendraising, global issues are examples) and the internal demands of the job (chairing meetings, mentoring, conflict resolution and budget just to name a few). Neither can be neglected. The trick is to balance the two to keep an institute on an even keel.

Here at Krasnow, we have a culture of a “light management touch” which suits that external-internal balancing act well. The main role of administration at this Institute is to facilitate science, not to control it. If facilitation comes from external fundraising, so be it. It that catalyst function comes from internal cheerleading, then that’s fine too.

The wet lab part of Krasnow Institute science…

Sometimes, from the director’s office, it’s easy to forget that a lot of wet lab science goes on at the Krasnow Institute. This view from the northeast corner of the Institute, far removed from the floor to ceiling glass of our great room, gives a bit of perspective on what we do.

These labs work on problems from nanotechnology engineering to molecular neuroscience using cellular imaging, mass spec, whole genome sequencing and electrophysiology. The battery of backup generators (one of them is lower left) keeps things humming along even through Washington’s famous thunderstorm power outages.

One of the characteristics that differentiates the Institute is the pairing of hard experimental science along side of the in silico world of modeling and agent-based simulations. We are very much an experimentally-based institute for advanced study.

Although…with the fab that we are busy installing, the term “in silico” will take on a new meaning at the Institute since we’ll be using silicon to produce nanomaterials as a tool for study the brain.

Turning the corner towards summer….

There are about four weeks left in the Spring semester here at George Mason. For my undergraduate cellular neuroscience class, they are finishing up the core material in molecular signal transduction and synaptic plasticity.

In the meantime, the campus is as verdant as ever. Commencement will be here before we know it and then the beginning of a very busy summer with our short course, a new university presidency, my annual visit to the MBL in Woods Hole and Renaissance Weekend in Aspen.

This year has seen the Institute move ahead on many fronts. Our new academic agreement with Berlin’s Humboldt University is in place, we are on the threshold of graduating quite a few doctoral students (I’m heading to a thesis defense later today), and our science is as exciting as its ever been.

Meanwhile, it’s with pleasure that we welcome to campus my former Amherst classmate, Zeke Emanuel today. I wish were able to make it to his talk and hope that our local readers will.

Response to Tyler’s "Sobering Thought" Blogpost

Tyler’s quite interesting short post on American Higher education is here. The money quote:

In other words, I work in what is perhaps the most competitive and successful sector in the most competitive and successful economy of all time.
And yet what I see around me is a total, total mess.  And I believe my school to be considerably above average in terms of how well it is run.

My sense is that he’s on to something here in that higher education is a mirror to the larger society in which it is embedded. Cowen had just blogged previously about David Brooks Two Economies (perhaps the 21st century’s version of C.P. Snow’s Two Cultures). Central to Brook’s thesis is that there are two economies these days in the US and they are growing ever more separate. Here is Brooks riffing on Tyler’s own recent work:

His work leaves the impression that there are two interrelated American economies. On the one hand, there is the globalized tradable sector — companies that have to compete with everybody everywhere. These companies, with the sword of foreign competition hanging over them, have become relentlessly dynamic and very (sometimes brutally) efficient.
On the other hand, there is a large sector of the economy that does not face this global competition — health care, education and government. Leaders in this economy try to improve productivity and use new technologies, but they are not compelled by do-or-die pressure, and their pace of change is slower.

One gets the impression that Brooks sees American Higher Ed as being firmly ensconced in Economy 2, while Tyler in his blog post sees it as being in Economy 1.

I think American Higher Education is mirroring the larger American Economy and that there are elements of both Economy 1 and 2 in the Academy. Further, the “mess” that Tyler sees around him is simply an accurate reflection of the tensions that Brook refers to in his column:

A rift is opening up. The first, globalized sector is producing a lot of the productivity gains, but it is not producing a lot of the jobs. The second more protected sector is producing more jobs, but not as many productivity gains. The hypercompetitive globalized economy generates enormous profits, while the second, less tradable economy is where more Americans actually live.
In politics, we are beginning to see conflicts between those who live in Economy I and those who live in Economy II. Republicans often live in and love the efficient globalized sector and believe it should be a model for the entire society. They want to use private health care markets and choice-oriented education reforms to make society as dynamic, creative and efficient as Economy I.

As long as we have STEM fields viewed from an Economy 1 prism and Humanities viewed from Economy 2….well, that’s pretty much a recipe for the perception of a mess, even at a well run place like George Mason. Oops, we’re back to C.P. Snow and Two Cultures….

Imagining imaging and supporting science

It’s a flawless Spring weekend here in Washington. I am sitting back in my living room thinking about two seemingly unrelated problems: what will be the next major advance in non-invasive human functional brain imaging and how to support academic science in an era of austerity.

The current gold standard in brain imaging, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has taken a remarkable number of hits recently, although most are related to analysis of the data and experimental design (For a good summary see Sleim and Roiser here). As importantly, what is measured, the BOLD signal, may correlate with synaptic activity in brain, but it’s most certainly physiologically removed–blood oxygen demand is, in fMRI,  a bio-proxy for chemical neurotransmission.

So the question is then, what comes next? What technology will replace BOLD and permit a more refined imaging of human brain function; one that matches the neural code better in both spatial and temporal resolution (for those excited by DT tractography, I would only point out that the wiring diagam is not dynamic like the active brain).

What comes next is very important to me because as an institute director, I invest scarce resources in the sort of expensive shared scientific infrastructure that comes with being able to non-invasively image human brain function. The trick is to avoid owning an expensive white elephant.

Which brings me to thoughts of money–where will the money come from to support American science if the academic-government social partnership of the last sixty years comes to an end (See Bush’s Science the Endless Frontier here)? One possibility is that progress in American science will come to a halt as it did in Russia for a while after the fall of the Soviet Union. Another possibility is that the political debate over this country’s financial difficulties will miraculously mature with the subsequent result of stable governmental support for scientific R&D continuing.

However, it also quite possible that in the current poisoned domestic political climate, science funding will fall off a cliff and that is a real worry. This worry is magnified by a recent paper (PDF) in the American Sociological Review by UNC’s Gordon Gauchat which analyzed trends in public trust of scientists. His results show a disturbing erosion of that trust among political conservatives. If the public doesn’t trust scientists, then it’s not a real stretch to see how congressional support for science R&D might be seriously damaged.

Which brings me to another possibility. Some multinational companies, such as Apple (see the Guardian piece here) are sitting on a huge amount of cash. Might there be a way to put that cash to work to increase public knowledge while at the same time increasing private return on investment?

Or to put it another way, might there be a new partnership in the works? One between academia and private enterprise? Such a partnership (on a large-scale) might truly energize the global economy and promote the sort of global positive outcomes which, until recent sovereign downgrades, had been the provence of governments, multilateral organizations and their coterie of NGO’s.

Tyler Cowen’s vision of a new American Century?

His 4000 word essay in American Interest is here. It’s a pretty positive vision of an american future that would be export-based. Shale gas, MITx courses and robotics all play important roles…along with maturing developing countries that develop a real taste for what we make best. I worry that he doesn’t factor in externals such as climate change, food production ceilings and the propensity for our primate brains to get the best of us. But it’s an important piece and it helps counter the declinist conventional wisdom.

A dark view of America’s future…

Here in FT’s magazine, by Edward Luce. At one level, it’s overly simplistic because Luce is trying to make a point–namely that the US is in decline across multiple dimensions. The truth is, and to be fair Luce acknowledges this point, this country remains a leader in many areas. But the piece makes many excellent points, particularly with regards to the political paralysis that I’ve blogged about recently.

But America has been at such a point before (think 1861 or 1968). Historically, it has shown an ability to renew itself at many decisive points and frankly the society is too complex to forecast any particular outcome with any degree of certainty.

In my own travels I have been impressed with how much innovation and creativity remains here in America. And further, the increasing productivity of humans may not be zero sum.