This paper estimates average and marginal returns to schooling in Indonesia using a non-parametric selection model. Identification of the model is given by exogenous geographic variation in access to upper secondary schools. We find that the return to upper secondary schooling varies widely...

Bargaining theory suggests that married women who experience a relative improvement in their labour market position should experience a comparative gain within their marriage. However, if renegotiation possibilities are limited by institutional mechanisms that achieve long-term commitment, the...

The increase in female employment and participation rates is one of the most dramatic economic changes to have taken place during the last century. However, while the employment rate of married women more than doubled during the last fifty years, that of unmarried women remained almost constant....

The paper explores the influence of job security provisions on employment and unemployment. We show that this influence depends on the persistence of the macroeconomic fluctuations to which the labour market is exposed, and on employees’ bargaining power in wage negotiations. Specifically,...

This paper criticizes the Alesina and Ichino (2007) proposal of taxing men more than women. First, the proposal is outright sex discrimination. Second, it cannot be Pareto-improving. Third, its virtues in terms of efficiency are better obtained by gender-neutral voluntary schemes for taxing...

This paper provides a brief, non-technical survey of the major theories about why people remain unemployed. The aim is to provide a macroeconomic perspective on the microeconomic problem of why people don't find work. The first section deals with market-clearing theories: the natural rate...

Changing social norms, as reflected in the interactions between spouses, are hypothesized to affect the employment rates of married women. A model is built in order to estimate this effect, in which the employment of married men and women is the outcome of an internal household game. The type of...

From the end of the second century C.E., Judaism enforced a religious norm requiring any Jewish father to educate his children. We present evidence supporting our thesis that this exogenous change in the religious and social norm had a major influence on Jewish economic and demographic history....

In this paper, we propose a theoretical model to study the effect of income insecurity of parents and offspring on the child's residential choice. Parents are partially altruistic toward their children and will provide financial help to an independent child when her income is low relative to the...

The age at which children leave the parental home differs considerably across countries. In this paper we argue that lower job insecurity of parents and higher job insecurity of children delay emancipation. We provide aggregate evidence which supports this hypothesis for 12 European countries...