Economic outcomes are compared for university graduates in Israel belonging to four different ethnic groups. A unique dataset is used that includes all individuals who graduated with a first degree from universities and colleges in Israel between the years 1995 and 2008 and which tracks them for...

Child labor is a widespread phenomenon and therefore is of interest to both researchers and policy makers. Various reasons for the existence of child labor have been proposed with the goal of designing appropriate solutions. While household poverty is viewed as the main reason for child labor,...

Distinguishing between short-run and long-run outcomes we provide new insight into the relationship between education and migration. We examine the specific link between the acquisition of high levels of human capital in the form of university education in Turkey and migration to Germany. We...

This paper addresses the question: Why and where do immigrants cluster? We examine the relative importance and interaction of two alternative explanations of immigrant clustering: (1) network externalities and (2) herd behavior. We advance the theory by presenting a framework encompassing both...

Fundamentalist organizations and the terrorists they spawn do not arise of a vacuum. Combating terrorism requires understanding the principles of groups’ formation, development and growth. We use economic theory to explain the creation and development of fundamentalist groups. In this paper we...

Empirical studies in the migration literature have shown that migration enclaves (networks) negatively affect the language proficiency of migrants. These studies, however, ignore the choice of location as a function of language skills. Using data on Mexican migration to the US, we show that...

Hierarchical firms are enterprises with rigid internal job ladders. We examine the state enterprise as the prototypical hierarchical firm. In the state enterprise, promotion of employees through the internal hierarchy is determined by the workers’ allocation of time between rent seeking and...

Governments do not have perfect information regarding the priorities and the needs of different groups in the economy. This lack of knowledge opens the door for different groups to lobby the government in order to receive the government’s support. We set up a model of hierarchical contests and...

In this paper we develop a theory of “Kosher Wars” under which Rabbis (certifying authorities) compete to enhance the level of Jewish observation of their congregations. The level of observance can be seen as the Rabbi’s rents. Our rent-seeking model explains the establishment...

This paper analyzes the decentralization of decision-making in aid-giving in a theoretical rent-seeking framework. In this analysis the root donor establishes a necessary criterion for potential recipients: good governance. The potential recipients compete in hierarchal contests for funds. The...