This paper presents a non-Malthusian theory of long-term development We model the interplay between the process of human capital formation, technological progress, and the biological constraint of finite lifetime expectancy. All these processes are interdependent and determined endogenously. The...

This paper argues that accounting for the dynamic interactions between endogenous changes in longevity, the education composition of the population, and the associated fertility differential is crucial for understanding the economic and the demographic transition. In the model, heterogeneous...

This paper tests two hypotheses from the theory of elimination tournaments: (i) that uneven tournaments, where the contestants are ex ante heterogeneous, entail lower effort exertion; this is a prediction from agency theory that has not been tested empirically before; and (ii) whether incentives...

In this paper we investigate the causal effect of life expectancy on economic growth by explicitly accounting for the role of the demographic transition. In addition to focusing on issues of empirical identification, this paper emphasizes the role of the econometric specification. We present a...

This paper develops a model of equilibrium unemployment with (unobservable) endogenous on-the-job search and (partly unobservable) endogenous search behavior by firms. The model allows to analyze crowding-out of unemployed job seekers by endogenous on-the job search of employees, and the...

This paper investigates whether risk preferences explain how individuals are sorted into occupations with different earnings variability. We exploit data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, which contains a subjective assessment of willingness to take risks whose behavioral relevance has been...