This paper proposes a new instrument for institutional qualitythe salary of colonial governorsto investigate whether variations in the quality of British colonial rule continue to have an impact on the economic performance of former colonies. Governors’ salaries provide a good source of...

This paper considers three aspects of the job insecurity facing British men in the last two decades. The probability of becoming unemployed, the costs of unemployment in terms of real wage losses and the probability that the continuously employed will experience substantial real wage losses. The...

This paper proposes a new instrument for institutional quality which varies across countries with historically low rates of European settlement. Using a new data set which exploits differences in the quality of colonial administration, it finds evidence that colonies with better paid colonial...

This paper explores the potential role of social learning in the process of skill formation. It develops a model in which parents form expectations about the future returns to schooling by observing the investment behavior of other families in their neighborhood. This model predicts that a...