Understanding why certain jobs are 'better' than others and what implications they have for a worker's career is clearly an important but still relatively unexplored question. We provide both a theoretical frame-work and a number of empirical results that help distinguishing 'good' from 'bad'...

Understanding why certain jobs are 'better' than others and what implications they have for a worker's career is clearly an important but still relatively unexplored question. We provide both a theoretical framework and a number of empirical results that help distinguishing 'good' from 'bad'...

Using a matched employer-employee database for Italy we look at the spatial distribution of wages across provinces. This rich database allows us to contribute at opening the black box of agglomeration economies exploiting the micro dimension of the interaction among economic agents, both...

We use Belgian firm level data over the period 1996-2007 to analyze the impact of imports from China and other low wage countries on firm growth, exit, and skill upgrading. We distinguish the impact of imports into two different channels: industry-level import competition and firm-level...

This paper analyzes the determinants of the intra-firm vs arms' length sourcing mode of imported inputs. We build a unique French dataset of 1,141,393 import transactions at the firm, country and product levels in the year 1999 that allow us to distinguish the different sourcing modes. We study...

How well does the theory of the firm explain the choice between intrafirm and arms' length trade? This paper uses firm-level import data from France to look into this question. We find support for three key predictions of property-rights theories of the multinational firm. Intrafirm imports are...