A puzzle in the recently-stagnated economy of Jamaica is that high rates of unemployment have persisted even when real wages have been increasing. This paper examines aspects of the labor supply in an effort to understand why high rates of unemployment have existed with increasing real wages. This is a sign of a badly functioning labor market. The cross-sectional analysis suggests that remittances have some impact on labor supply, especially on labor market participation. The pseudo panel data analysis also confirms that remittances have a strong impact on labor participation but not on weekly working hours. Households with remittance income a have higher reservation wage and have reduced the supply of labor by moving out of the labor force.

The non-cell autonomous transfer of OTX2 homeoprotein transcription factor into juvenile mouse cerebral cortex regulates parvalbumin interneuron maturation and critical period timing. By analyzing gene expression in primary visual cortex of wild-type and Otx2+/GFP mice at plastic and nonplastic ages, we identified several putative genes implicated in Otx2-dependent visual cortex plasticity for ocular dominance. Cortical OTX2 infusion in juvenile mice induced Gadd45b/g expression through direct regulation of transcription. Intriguingly, a reverse effect was found in the adult, where reducing cortical OTX2 resulted in Gadd45b/g upregulation. Viral expression of Gadd45b in adult visual cortex directly induced ocular dominance plasticity with concomitant changes in MeCP2 foci within parvalbumin interneurons and in methylation states of several plasticity gene promoters, suggesting epigenetic regulation. This interaction provides a molecular mechanism for OTX2 to trigger critical period plasticity yet suppress adult plasticity.