There exists a large consensus in the economic literature and in the economic institutions about the legitimacy of policies subsidizing education. This legitimacy lies in the fact that education is a source of positive externalities. In a standard framework of endogenous fertility, the present...

This paper focuses on the interaction between gender discrimination and household decisions. It develops a general equilibrium model with endogenous fertility, endogenous labor supply and endogenous size of government spending. Family policies are assumed to decrease the time that parents spend...

Much of the gender inequality in the labour market is brought about by women's dual role as worker and (potential) carer. In this regard transitional arrangements can contribute to mitigate the risks associated with parenthood and to distribute risks more equally. This paper looks at these...

We present a model of household behavior to explore the complex interactions between the decision-making process within the household and social norms. The household is viewed as two separate spheres – the female and the male – both linked by a public good and a "conjugal contract" trough...

This paper assesses the optimal level of public debt in a new framework where aggregate fluctuations are taken into account. Agents are subject to both aggregate and idiosyncratic shocks and the market structure prevents them from perfectly insuring against the risk. We find that the optimal...

This article presents a conceptual approach related to the European flexicurity debate, the Transitional Labour Market (TLM) theory and its main assumptions. The aim is to bring this analytic framework into the discussion and to clarify some central aspects by defining the key concepts of...

Even in countries where there is a male-biased sex ratio, it is still possible for the marriage market to be balanced if men marry younger women and population is growing. We define a missing Brides Index to reflect the intensity of the possible imbalance at steady state, taking into account the...

We propose a simple model of a mating economy in both monogamous and polygynous cultures, and derive implications for how polygyny affects individual and aggregate fertility. We find that an attractive woman is more likely to find a high-status husband. However, when polygyny is allowed,...

How the transformations of the family, but also those of employment, did lead to new practices, specific and distinct from domestic work in the strict sense, around the assumption of responsibility of the children by the family ? How this particular work, the parental one, could be isolated and...

This contribution to the Gusto research project for the European 7th framework programme (Work Package 3: individual pathways to Flexibility and Sustainability) examines how employment uncertainty during the transition into the labour force differently impacts family formation in Germany and...