This study pools data from two sources to investigate the role of educational attainment in determining the gender wage gap. The empirical analysis reveals that the returns to education remained largely unchanged for young men but declined significantly for young women over the period 1984-2007....

We introduce expectations regarding the amount of exerted effort by males and females into the "standard" labor market equilibrium. Using a theoretical model, we show that the gender wage gap increases when the expected effect is incorporated into the model. Based on a survey, we find that there...

The most direct way to find out what elderly Americans do is to study how they occupy their time and, if they are still in the labor force, in what occupations can they be found. This essay focuses on three key issues regarding the activities of those 65 and over: their average use of time in 41...

Development practitioners worldwide increasingly recognize the importance of informal institutions-such as norms of cooperation, non-discrimination, or the role of community oversight in the management of investment activities-in affecting well-being, poverty, and even economic growth. There has...

Economists in the neoclassical tradition do their best to avoid using the word "need." Social economists have traditionally been more open to discussions of need. Philosophic discussions of need are also scarce but nevertheless helpful. This essay will argue that need is "a word we cannot do...

We re-examine Lynn and Vanhanen's argument that gross domestic product (GDP) depends upon IQ. We argue that their analysis suffers from three types of biases, each of which would tend to erroneously favor their hypothesis. Despite this stacked deck, we find that their results are rather fragile....