This paper develops a learning model of cultural change to investigate why women's labor force participation (LFP) and attitudes toward women’s work both changed dramatically. In the model, women's beliefs about the long-run payoff from working evolve endogenously via an intergenerational...

To explain the large differences in labor productivity across U.S. states, the authors estimate two models--one based on local geographical externalities and the other on the diversity of local intermediate services--where spatial density results in aggregate increasing returns. Both models lead...

Why do governments so often fail to adopt policies that economists consider to be efficiency-enhancing? The authors answer to this question relies on uncertainty regarding the distribution of gains and losses from reform. They show that there is a bias toward the status quo (and, hence, against...