Requirements that parties have assets of at least a minimum level in order to participate in an activity are frequently imposed. A principal rationale for minimum asset requirements is considered in this article potential injurers have stronger incentives to prevent harm, or not to engage in...

We perform a quantitative analysis of observed changes in U.S. between-group inequality between 1984 and 2003. We use an assignment framework with many labor groups, equipment types, and occupations in which changes in inequality are caused by changes in workforce composition, occupation demand,...

Entrepreneurship requires energy and creativity as well as business acumen. Some factors that contribute to entrepreneurship may decline with age, but business skills increase with experience in high level positions. Having too many older workers in society slows entrepreneurship. Older workers...

We model unemployment allowing workers to differ by comparative advantage in market work. Workers with comparative advantage are identified by who works more hours when employed. This enables us to test the model by grouping workers based on their long-term wages and hours from panel data. The...

In this paper, we make the general point that econometric studies of the firm can be effectively and substantially enriched by using information collected from employees, even if only a few of them are surveyed per firm. Though variables measured on the basis of the answers of very few employees...

We present theory and evidence that challenges the view that forward premia contain little information regarding subsequent spot rate movements. Using weekly dollar-mark and dollar sterling data, we find that spot and forward exchange rates together are well represented by a vector error...

We study theoretically and empirically how consumers in an individual private long-term health insurance market with front-loaded contracts respond to newly mandated portability requirements of their old-age provisions. To foster competition, effective 2009, German legislature made the...

Instrumental variables (IV) are a common means to identify treatment effects. But standard IV methods do not allow us to unpack the complex treatment effects that arise when a treatment and its outcome together cause a second outcome of interest. For example, IV methods have been used to show...

This paper investigates how the size of co-ethnic networks at the time of arrival affect the economic success of immigrants in Germany. Applying panel analysis with a large set of fixed effects and controls, we isolate the association between initial network size and long-run immigrant outcomes....