In trying to explain institutional quality, different authors have come to conflicting conclusions. In tackling the problem themselves, the authors show three things. First, openness is positively and pretty robustly associated with institutional quality. To minimize selection bias, the authors...

This paper uses a new standardized micro database for a large set of developing countries to (1) describe the patterns of labor market outcomes for youth, and (2) explain the contributions of supply and demand factors to youth outcomes. The paper shows that youth face various difficulties in...

Economists have examined the impact of labor market regulations on the level of employment. But there are many reasons to suspect that the impact of regulations differs across types of workers. In this paper the authors take advantage of the unusually large variance in labor policy in Chile to...

This paper compares the wages of workers inside the United States to the wages of observably identical workers outside the United States-controlling for country of birth, country of education, years of education, work experience, sex, and rural-urban residence. This is made possible by new and...

This paper exploits variation in country-level indicators drawn from published data to analyze the relationship between labor regulation and the use of digital technology. The analysis shows a statistically and economically significant association between digital technology use by firms and a...

Data from 919 household surveys conducted between 1960 and 2012, spanning 147 economies, are used to evaluate the relationship between rising life expectancy at birth and lifetime years of schooling for successive birth cohorts between 1905 and 1988. The study finds significant positive effects...

Rates of return to investments in schooling have been estimated since the late 1950s. In the 60-plus year history of such estimates, there have been several attempts to synthesize the empirical results to ascertain patterns. This paper presents comparable estimates, as well as a database, that...

Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain entered a period of severe economic and financial stress in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis. Their collective experience confirmed the primacy of total debt, private or public, in affecting the onset of, depth of, and recovery from economic crises. The year...

This paper builds on recent research examining the impact of finance on growth, looking at the effect of the financial system on volatility in gross domestic product per capita and consumption per capita growth. It also examines the impact of credit on the composition of growth. The findings...

Good institutional quality (function) and similar institutional design (form) can promote international trade by reducing transactions costs. The authors evaluate the relative importance of function versus form in a gravity model, using an indicator of different legal systems as a proxy for...