This paper assesses the impact of pollution on worker productivity by relating exogenous daily variations in ozone with productivity of agricultural workers as recorded under piece rate contracts. We find robust evidence that ozone levels well below federal air quality standards have a...

Cross-country labor productivity differences are larger in agriculture than in non-agriculture. We propose a new explanation for these patterns in which the self-selection of heterogeneous workers determines sector productivity. We formalize our theory in a general-equilibrium Roy model in which...

We study the determinants of differences in farm-size across countries and their impact on agricultural and aggregate productivity using a quantitative sectoral model featuring a distribution of farms. Measured aggregate factors (capital, land, economy-wide productivity) account for ? of the...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper, starting from a theoretical framework, is to analyze the spillover effects of human capital brought by labor mobility and their influence on the public education investment. Design/methodology/approach – Based on the endogenous growth theory, the paper...

We study the effect of outdoor air pollution on the productivity of indoor workers at a pear-packing factory. We focus on fine particulate matter (PM2.5), a harmful pollutant that easily penetrates indoor settings. We find that an increase in PM2.5 outdoors leads to a statistically and...

A key aspect of generating new ideas is drawing from different elements of past knowledge and combining them into a new idea. In such a process, the diversity of ideas plays a central role. This paper examines the empirical question of how the internet affected the diversity of new research by...

We trace individual-level learning and knowledge transfer in public research by matching about 5,000 doctoral dissertations and their advisors over the full history of German laser research. We study the number of laser-related dissertations per advisor, publication and patent outputs of...

This paper examines the role of individual risk attitudes in the decision to adopt a new form of agricultural biotechnology in China. I conducted a survey and a field experiment to elicit the risk preferences of Chinese farmers, who faced the decision of whether to adopt genetically modified Bt...

Suppose that homogeneous agents fully consume their time to invent new ideas and learn ideas from their friends. If the social network is complete and agents pick friends and ideas of friends uniformly at random, the distribution of ideas׳ popularity is an extension of the Yule–Simon...

Differences in technology levels across countries account for a large component of the differences in wages and per-capita GDP across countries worldwide. This article reviews micro studies of the adoption of new technologies and the use of inputs complementary with new technologies to shed...