It is argued that parents provide help with housing downpayments in order to encourage the production of grandchildren, and that such a subsidization emanates from the ?demonstration effect:? a child?s propensity to furnish parents with attention and care can be conditioned by parental example....

This paper presents a set of reflections on what gives rise to remittances, which constitute a major part of the impact of migration on economic development in the migrants’ own countries. The collage of reasons presented serves to illustrate that remittance behavior is the outcome of an...

This paper considers the integration of economies as a merger of populations. The premise is that the merger of groups of people alters their social landscape and their comparators. The paper identifies the effect of the merger on aggregate distress. A merger is shown to increase aggregate...

Evidence is presented in support of the “brain gain” view that the likelihood of migrating to a destination wherein the returns to human capital (schooling) are high creates incentives to acquire human capital in migrant-sending areas. In Mexico, even though internal migrants are more...

This paper argues that an increase in the inequality of wealth prompts a stronger quest for status that in turn fosters the accumulation of wealth. It proposes a measure for an individual's want of social status. For a given level of a population's wealth, the corresponding aggregate measure of...

Drawing on two assumptions: that menopause is an instrument for the efficient regulation of the duration of a biologically expensive state, and that people have children in order to obtain support from them in old age, we set out a new idea that seeks to explain both the occurrence of menopause...

The Gini coefficient features prominently in Amartya Sen’s 1973 and 1997 seminal work on income inequality and social welfare. We construct the Gini coefficient from social-psychological building blocks, reformulating it as a ratio between a measure of social stress and aggregate income. We...

We examine an assumed link between reducing inequality in income distribution, namely reducing the Gini coefficient on one hand, and improving public health in general and lowering the incidence and severity of COVID-19 in particular on the other hand. The Gini coefficient can be shown to...

We study a parent’s demand for gratitude from his child. We view this demand as an intervening variable between the parent’s earnings and the incidence of child labor. The demand for gratitude arises from the desire of a parent to receive care and support from his child late in life, while...

We develop a formula for the optimal size of a joint savings association between individuals who share the same financial goal and who can save towards that goal at the same rate. Our motivating example and the core of our analysis is a Rotating Savings and Credit Association (ROSCA). We measure...