This paper examines the similarity in the association between earnings of sons and fathers in Germany and the United States. It relaxes the log-linear functional form imposed in most studies of the intergenerational earnings association. Theory implies the relationship between earnings of...

This paper shows how a firm can use non-targeted advertising to exploit consumers' desire for social status. A monopolist sells multiple varieties of a good to consumers who each care about what others believe about his wealth. Advertising allows consumers both to buy different varieties and to...

This paper examines the intergenerational correlation in unemployment in Norway and, by use of the sibling-difference method, separates that correlation into its causal and non-causal parts. Detailed register data covering the entire Norwegian population provide the long panel of data this...

We estimate the impact of schooling and capital constraints at the time of startup on the performance of Dutch entrepreneurial ventures, taking into account the potential endogeneity and interdependence of these variables. Instrumental variable estimates indicate that a 1 percentage point...

Why do individuals choose different types of post-secondary education, and what are the labor market consequences of those choices? We show that answering these questions is difficult because individuals choose between several unordered alternatives. Even with a valid instrument for every type...