Child labor's effect on academic achievement is estimated using unique data on third and fourth graders in nine Latin-American countries. Cross-country variation in truancy regulations provides an exogenous shift in the ages of children normally in these grades, providing exogenous variation in...

School autonomy and parental participation have been frequently proposed as ways of making schools more productive. Less clear is how governments can foster decentralized decision making by local schools. This article shows that across eight Latin American countries, most of the variation in...

Past empirical literature provides strong evidence that competitionincreases when new firms enter a market. However, rarely have economistsbeen able to examine how competition changes with the threat of entry.This paper uses the evolution of the zip code level market structure offacilities-based...

Long-term attachments between workers and firms are common. Numerous studies have examined worker returns to tenure, but little is known of firm returns to firm–worker matches. Yet these attachments represent a human capital asset quasi-held by the firm, which is not captured by traditional...

In developing countries, rising incomes, increased demand for more skilled labor, and government investments of considerable resources on building and equipping schools and paying teachers have contributed to global convergence in enrollment rates and completed years of schooling. Nevertheless,...

Changes in women's relative wages and employment are analyzed, using social security data from Slovenia (1987-1992) and a retrospective labor force survey in Estonia (1989-1994). Estonia adopted liberal labor market policies. Slovenia took an interventionist approach. Nevertheless, relative...

This paper examines factors affecting the role of individual, farm production, family finance, and regional characteristics in affecting labor force decisions by farm households. Young, more educated households are much more likely to work off-farm, suggesting that off-farm labor has become an...