We propose a model where imperfect matching between firms and workers on local labor markets leads to spatial agglomeration. We show that the occurrence of spatial agglomeration depends on initial size differences in terms of both number of workers and firms. We analyse the effect of different...

We propose a model where imperfect matching between firms and workers on local labor markets leads to spatial agglomeration. We show that the occurrence of spatial agglomeration depends on initial size differences in terms of both number of workers and firms. We analyse the effect of different...

Consider an economy populated by males and females, both rich and poor. The society has to choose one of the following marriage institutions: polygyny, strict monogamy, and serial monogamy (divorce and remarriage). After having identified the conditions under which each of these equilibria...

We propose a new theory of the demographic transition based on the evidence that body development during childhood is an important predictor of adult life expectancy. Fertility, childhood development, longevity, education and income growth all result from individual decisions. Parents face a...

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that inherited human capital is a powerful vector of inequality formation and persistence, irrespective of its links with financial wealth endowment. This paper argues that the agents who inherit a low level of human capital bear a greater utility cost...

We explore the consequences of liberalized credit markets for growth and inequality in a lifecycle economy with physical and human capital accumulation, populated by households of different abilities, and calibrated to match the longrun economic performance of a panel of emerging countries....

We propose four arguments favoring the idea that medical effectiveness, adult longevity and height started to increase in Europe before the industrial revolution. This may have prompted households to increase their investment in human skills as a response to longer lives and initiated the...

When the production of high quality goods needs the employment of qualified labour, firms’ decisions concerning quality are affected by the extent to which skills are abundant. By means of a comparison between monopoly and perfect competition, we show how market power in such a context may...

This paper provides theoretical foundations to the contemporaneous increase in computer usage, human capital and multi-tasking observed in many OECD countries during the 1990s. The links between work organization, technology and human capital is modelled by establishing the conditions under...

Several developed countries are witnessing a trend towards an increasing gap in the earnings between skilled and unskilled workers. Though it is widely recognised that human capital formation programs through education and training should be strengthened in the presence of increasing wage...