America is known for being a country filled with immigrants and there has been patterns of immigrants of the same cultural groups settling in the same areas. I am going to economically analyze Hmong immigrants in Minnesota and why they chose to stay as a community in Minnesota. According to the 2010 U.S. Census report by Hmong National Development there is a population of 66,181 Hmong immigrants in Minnesota, the second highest population following the 91,224 immigrants in California. Why are there the highest concentrations of Hmong immigrants only in particular areas of the United States specifically Minnesota? One reasonable answer could be that the people who has sponsored for the Hmong immigrants to come to America all live in Minnesota, but realistically this is not true. Christian missionaries and other sponsors have lived in Chicago, New York, etc and although these places have been the first places Hmong immigrants have landed in the United States they have converged into a community in Minnesota.

There are different generations of Hmong immigrants in the United States. Older waves of Hmong immigrants have had the opportunity to get an education and establish businesses and firms. Because the population of Hmong people in Minnesota is so large, this area is an attraction for firms directed towards Hmong people. An example is the Como flea market that have a local Hmong famer’s grocery section and an imported Asian goods sections. The flea market as a whole firm, earns zero profits because they earn only as much as the total number of vendors’ fixed costs to maintain a booth. These obtained fixed costs from the vendors are used to pay the flea market establishment’s own fixed costs; thus you never see a bankrupt vendor store for a long period of time as that will result in a loss. On a smaller scale, the vendors in these markets are earning profit though as they are monopolistically competitive. We know this because more vendors are still constantly buying space to sell their products. The total revenue of the small shops exceeds the total costs. Thus; there has been an increased in smaller firms entering the market by opening a new shop. These types of firms are selective about where they establish because their customers and laborers are primarily the Hmong people. And because Hmong people find these firms directed towards them as familiar, safe, and important to the Hmong culture, Hmong immigrants find themselves gathering into groups and living in communities such as the one in Minnesota.

For younger waves of Hmong immigrants to the United States the benefits of living in Minnesota is also higher as well as implicit costs of living in Minnesota is also much less compared to other states for new Hmong immigrants. Most Hmong people from Laos are uneducated and trained only in subsistence farming. The geography of Minnesota provides a good incentive for living in Minnesota as there are farms. Also because there is such a huge population of Hmong people living in Minnesota already, there is an established community for the Hmong immigrants. Thus, if a new generation of Hmong immigrants were to come to the United States they will prefer to settle in Minnesota because they may have family already residing there as well as a helping Hmong Community. Their marginal utility increases as their marginal rate of substitution for living in Minnesota is inelastic meaning they are less willing to be indifferent to living elsewhere.

Newer immigrants also like how Minnesota’s low-income aid programs are extremely well enforced through government subsidies such as Section 8 of the Housing Act of 1937 which provides free public housing for families of American veterans. Minnesota especially has a comparative advantage in services for low-income immigrants. Inaddition to the public housing, there is also EBT available for low-income households which is a form of a food assistance program. This comparative advantage compared to many other states gives Minnesota the lower explicit costs for immigrants as the government will provide subsidies for food and shelter. The public housing subsidy creates deadweight loss for the housing market though as the demand curve of the consumers are shifted to the right and the quantity is increased. This subsidy benefits the immigrants because their demand curve is more inelastic than the supply curve. Who wouldn’t want free money?

From looking at the opportunities in Minnesota given to old and young waves of Hmong immigrants in the United States, Minnesota provides a subsidy programs that benefit the low-income Hmong immigrants, as well as incentives and thresholds for older Hmong immigrants to establish efficient markets for the Hmong community. This incentive to living in Minnesota has created a flowing effect of Hmong immigrants.

I was going through the blogs in class trying to find a short blog that I thought could be interesting. As summer is approaching and I remember my prom being around this time in May of last year, Freakonomic’ s blog post titled “Prom Effect” caught my eye. The link is provided: http://freakonomics.com/2009/09/23/the-prom-effect/

Although the blog post is from 2009, the bloggers stated that studies have shown less educated women has been studied to have their babies born in the winter. They affiliated this pattern in conception to “soirees” such as prom. And as prom is usually in spring, the nine months period for baby development will mean the baby will come out in the winter supporting the study. I refuse to believe that prom and other social events will have anything to do with the patterns of conceptions. Firstly, less educated women are often lower in the socioeconomic status and the fact is that most of them cannot afford to go to prom and if they do the opportunity cost of spending money on a dress, limo, dance ticket, dinner, etc is much too high relative to other products of consumption they can get.  There demand and willingness to pay for prom is much less compared to other individuals. As a high school, prom tickets are also never lowered as those are sunk costs needed to be paid to rent the prom revenue thus demand of the lower socioeconomic women will never meet the quantity supplied at a lower price. Other costs that, if the person does decide to go to prom, are variable costs that are determined by the individual such as the prom dress, jewelry, and transportation. Secondly, the study given by the bloggers do not list the age of the less educated women so you cannot affiliate the less educated women with younger students. Although there has been a rise in teenage pregnancy, I don’t believe that seniors in highschool especially who are preparing for college will risk their total utility  (happiness) for the next nine months for a higher utility without the proper protection.

There are many other factors that can contribute to the findings in the study other than prom. For example, December is the cutoff date for when  a couple can claim a year’s worth of deductions for only 1 or 2 months of actually having the child to care for so having a baby in December could be what the family is shooting for. Thus the demand for children is highest around spring because that will help with tax deductions. Inaddition, the seasonal change in spring could have led to a scientific explanation for hormonal changes in the women which has nothing to do decision-making.

Inconclusion, I think the blog post is extremely narrow-minded in pointing out young individuals as the cause of the seasonal pattern of conception and assuming that social parties such as prom, etc will contribute a significant amount of conception to births in winter.

Recently for my job, I was offered a one week shift to work 40 hours over the summer at Carleton College.  I can work only right after the finals period so the week of June 8 to June 12 or for one week anytime in August. I was having a hard time choosing when to work because of implicit and explicit costs. For the total cost of working, I am willing to pay 70 dollars  over the summer.  The form for summer housing is due Tuesday, May 13 and as I was looking up the payment options, June 8 to June 13 costs $120 because it is commencement week, whereas weeks in August cost $70.  This means that my explicit costs is higher for June and thus I should go for August as that met the maximum price I was willing to pay, but to get housing in August compared to commencement week means that I have to find a proxy that was living on campus in the summer for over 7 weeks and I do not know anyone planning to stay on campus over the summer. The housing application, again noted, is due in two days so the implicit costs added to my total cost for August is actually higher.

I thought, then, to myself since from June 8 to June 12, housing will still be open for students until Tuesday, June 10. I will technically only need two days for extra payment for housing and the $120 cost of that is not reasonable as that is $60 per day and quantitatively I will be only earning about 300 dollars over that one week period (a third of my paycheck will be gone for housing). I looked up Northfield lines options for transportation costs as a way of substitution for housing since I live in Saint Paul, MN.  It costs 26 dollars to travel from the cities to Northfield, and Northfield back to the cities in one day. I would need transportation for two days; thus that will be a total of $52. If I compare the opportunity cost, now, of working the week of June or working a week in August, it saves me more money to work in June if I commute for two days ($26/2 days), rather then dorming for one week in August($14/5 days).