Is there an economic rationale for pronatalist policies? We propose and analyze a particular market failure that leads to inefficiently low fertility in equilibrium. The friction is caused by the lack of ownership of children: if parents have no claim on their children’s income, the...

Predictive regressions are linear specications linking a noisy variable such as stock returns to past values of a more persistent regressor such as valuation ratios, interest rates etc with the aim of assessing the presence or absence of predictability. Key complications that arise when...

This paper presents results from a modified dictator experiment aimed at distinguishing and quantifying the two intrinsic motivations for giving: warm glow and pure altruism. In particular, we implemented a within-subject experimental design with three treatments: (i) one, where the recipient is...

A skill-biased change in technology can account at once for the changes observed in a number of important variables of the US labour market between 1970 and 1990. These include the increasing inequality in wages, both between and within education groups, and the increase in unemployment at all...

We consider the issue of illegal migration from Mexico to the US, and examine whether the lack of legal status causally impacts on outcomes, specifically wages and remitting behavior. These outcomes are of particular interest given the extent of legal and illegal migration, and the resulting...

This paper explores the main determinants of productivity growth. The analysis is performed using Spanish firm-level data. We define a framework where the relative magnitudes of alternative, but not exclusive, sources of technical change is simultaneously estimated. Our main finding is that...

This paper proposes and implements a new method of measuring the degree of consumption smoothing using data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey. The structure of this Survey is such that estimators previously used in the literature are inconsistent, simply because income is measured annually...

This paper considers the place of mathematical methods based on probability in the work of the London (later Royal) Statistical Society in the half-century 1883-1933. The end-points are chosen because mathematical work started to appear regularly in 1883 and 1933 saw the formation of the...

General equilibrium models in which compensation for local amenities occurs in both housing and labour markets have been widely used to generate implicit amenity prices and regional quality of life indices. An implication and prospective test of such models is that individuals who are outside...