An implementation of the theory of labor migration under asymmetric information shows that return migration arises from the reinstatement of informational symmetry which induces low-skill workers, who are no longer pooled with high-skill workers, to return. When workers in an occupation...

In this paper we utilize urban economics to identify socially optimal levels of urbanization and, by implication, optimal levels of rural-to-urban migration. Our analysis addresses, first, the case where there is only one urban center (region) in the economy and, second, where there are two....

If children confer new insurance benefits or are more reliable suppliers of old insurance benefits, demand for offspring may rise. Although it might be costly to prepare children to provide enhanced benefits, the costs might be even higher when the family has only a small number of children....

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...

This paper presents the outline of a new approach to the theory of rural-to-urban migration in less developed countries. Implications of the approach for inequality in the distribution of income, fertility decisions, and the shadow wage rate are explored.

This paper assumes that migrants derive utility from their own consumption, their own leisure, and remittances to their family. It hypothesizes that the labor supply and remittances of Mexican migrants in the U.S. are jointly determined. Shits in real exchange rates affect the cost of sending a...