The migration of skilled individuals from developing countries has typically been considered to be costly for the sending country, due to lost investments in education, high fiscal costs and labour market distortions. Economic theory, however, raises the possibility of a beneficial brain drain...

This paper evaluates the impact of economic and legal variables on wage differentials between men and women. Since Becker (1957) economists have argued that competitive markets eliminate discrimination in the long run. On the other hand, practically all countries have enacted some sort of law...

This paper is composed of two parts. First, using international data, I corroborate that union density in the U.S. declined because of asymmetric growth between the union and nonunion sectors. I show union density to increase in countries experiencing strong manufacturing growth, and to decline...

Since the early seventies, hundreds of authors have calculated gender wage differentials between women and men of equal productivity. Consequently, estimates for the gender wage gap have been published for the most diverse countries at different points in time. This metastudy provides a...

In this paper, we develop an allocation model of workers differentiated by their field of study to test whether international differences in the wage structure can be explained by differences in labor demand and supply in each country. The model explicitly takes into account the effects of...

Starting a firm with expansive potential is an option for educated and high-skilled workers. This option serves as an insurance against unemployment caused by labor market frictions and hence increases the incentives for education. We show within a matching model that reducing the start-up costs...

This paper tests two hypotheses from the theory of elimination tournaments: (i) that uneven tournaments, where the contestants are ex ante heterogeneous, entail lower effort exertion; this is a prediction from agency theory that has not been tested empirically before; and (ii) whether incentives...

The present paper provides an overview of literature on the shift to services. It follows the three dimensions of structural change - final demand, the inter-industry division of labor and inter-industry productivity differences. It first looks at the ?classics?, however (Fisher (1935), Clark...

This study critically reviews quantitative methods that have been employed and evidence that has been gathered to assess the benefits of marriage and consequences of other family structures. The study begins by describing theoretical models of the determinants of different well-being outcomes...

In the information age an exchange with the media is part of the duties the economics profession has to deliver to educate the public and to ensure its position in society. A key issue is the education of policymakers through the media. It is the silver bullet of policy advice in comparison to...