We explore the relationship between capital accumulation, trade, and the development of property rights. In our analysis, the development of property rights is an endogenous process, driven by capital accumulation. Property rights are defined as institutions that internalize the portion of the...

In developing economies, substantial economic activity takes place in the informal labor market, beyond the reach of government policy. Labor market policies, which by definition apply only to the formal-sector labor market, then have important spillover effects. The relative sizes of the...

We model an environment in which different vintages of capital with their different productivities coexist. A reduction in the cost of investment induces investment in new capital which raises both measured capital and measured productivity simultaneously. We calibrate this model to...

A model with leisure production and endogenous retirement is used to explain the declining labor-force participation rates of elderly males. Using the Health and Retirement Study, the model is calibrated to cross-sectional data on the labor-force participation rates of elderly US males by age...

The model presented in this paper reconciles two of the most important features of the long-run growth process: the massive changes in the structure of production and employment; and the Kaldor facts of economic growth. Structural change occurs because Engel-curves are non-linear. Each new good...

During the first half of the 20th century the workweek in the United States declined, and the distribution of hours across wage deciles narrowed. At the same time, the distribution of wages narrowed too. The hypothesis proposed is (i) Households have access to an increasing number of leisure...

We perform development decompositions measuring the effect of trade restrictions on TFP and labor productivity. An economy with two tradable and non-storable intermediate goods, used in the production of a non-tradable final good, is assumed. The solution of the static trade and factor...

This paper explores links between women's economic progress and widening inter-industry wage differentials. Each phenomenon arises because of technological change that has favored young women's human capital, in what is called sex-biased technological change. Such technological change helps...