So far little is known about how private sector earnings in Russia compare to those in the still strong government sector. This paper estimates sectoral earnings equations for rural and urban men and women which control for: (1) Self-selection into the workforce; and (2) Self-selection into either...

The impacts of international migration on development in the sending countries, and especially the effects on remaining household members, are increasingly studied. However, comparisons of households in developing countries with and without migrants are complicated by a double-selectivity...

How much do migrants stand to gain in income from moving across borders? Answering this question is complicated by non-random selection of migrants from the general population, which makes it hard to obtain an appropriate comparison group of non-migrants. New Zealand allows a quota of Tongans to...

The impacts of international emigration and remittances on incomes and poverty in sending areas are increasingly studied with household survey data. But comparing households with and without emigrants is complicated by a triple-selectivity problem: first, households self-select into emigration;...

The development of a vibrant private sector has been one of the key failures of the transitional period of Russia. This paper develops a theoretical and empirical model of individual labor supply behavior under uncertainty, and estimates this model using data from the Russian Longitudinal...

Evidence from several countries reveals a substantial drop in household consumption around the age of retirement that is difficult to explain with life-cycle models. Using food consumption data from more than 550 households from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics for the years 1979-1986 and...

People migrate to improve their well-being, whether through an expansion of economic and social opportunities or a reduction in persecution. Yet a large literature suggests that migration can be a stressful process, with potentially negative impacts on mental health, reducing the net benefits of...

Measuring the gain in income from migration is complicated by non-random selection of migrants from the general population, making it difficult to obtain an appropriate comparison group of non-migrants. This paper uses a migrant lottery to overcome this problem, providing an experimental measure...

Millions of people emigrate every year in search of better economic and social opportunities. Anecdotal evidence suggests that emigrants may have over-optimistic expectations about the incomes they can earn abroad, resulting in excessive migration pressure, and in disappointment among those who...