We present a general model of the interaction between settlement and the emergence of de facto property rights on frontiers prior to governments establishing and enforcing de jure property rights. Settlers have an incentive to establish de facto property rights to avoid the dissipation...

A common critique of most measures of income inequality, which are based on a single year's income, is that they fail to take account of income mobility. If income fluctuations are large, and individuals can smooth consumption, then high inequality and high mobility may be no worse than low...

Taxation data have been used to create long-run series for the distribution of top incomes in quite a number of countries. Most of these studies have focused on the national experience of individual countries, but we can also learn from cross-country comparisons. Comparative analysis is...

Different economic characteristics between developing and developed countries may require worker with different skills, resulting in different returns to the same ability. Moreover, it is also possible that different countries require different skills depending on their economic fundamentals....

Arizona's recent passage of Senate Bill 1070 has reignited a national debate over illegal immigration (and immigration more generally), bringing language politics back to the fore. Over the last one-hundred years, states have intermittently introduced and passed legislation declaring English as...