In this paper we use a dynamic structural life-cycle model to analyze the employment,fiscal and welfare effects induced by unemployment insurance. The model features a detailedspecification of the tax and transfer system, including unemployment insurance benefitswhich depend on an individual's...

This paper presents simple conditions for monopoly third-degree price discrimination to have negative or positive e¤ectson aggregate consumer surplus. Consumer surplus is often re-duced by discrimination, for example when total welfare (con-sumer surplus and pro…ts) falls. Surplus increases...

This paper surveys new research concerning bargaining within supply chains and its implications for buyer power. The paper explores the implications of the research on supermarket supply chains for primary, secondary and private-label branded goods. The empirical base in support of the theories...

This paper examines the implications of “prominence” in search markets. We modelprominence by supposing that the prominent firm will be sampled first by all consumers.If there are no systematic quality differences among firms, we find that the prominentfirm will charge a lower price than its...

This paper uses the adoption and invention of the spinning jenny as a test case to understandwhy the industrial revolution occurred in Britain in the eighteenth century rather than inFrance or India. It is shown that wages were much higher relative to capital prices in Britainthan in other...

The paper reviews the macroeconomic data describing the British economy from 1760 to1913 and shows that it passed through a two stage evolution of inequality. In the first half ofthe nineteenth century, the real wage stagnated while output per worker expanded. The profitrate doubled and the...

The paper compares Feinstein’s and Clark’s consumer price and real wage indices for theBritish industrial revolution. The sources for their weights and component price series areevaluated. While some of Clark’s innovations are improvements, many of his changesdegrade the price index. A new...

This paper investigates the traits of the self-employed entrepreneurs in urbanChina, an economy rife with informational and institutional imperfections, underdevelopedfinancial markets, but a growing and important non-state sector. The selfemployedmake on average 20% more than non-entrepreneurs,...

I analyze empirically the effects of both urban and industrial agglomeration on men’s andwomen’s search behavior and on the efficiency of matching. The analysis is based on the ItalianLabor Force Survey micro-data, which covers 520 randomly drawn Local Labor Market Areas(66 per cent of the...

We present a general Cournot model in which each ¯rm may sell multiplequality-di®erentiated products. We use an upgrades approach, working not with theactual products, but instead with upgrades from one quality to the next. The prop-erties of single-product Cournot models carry over to the...