Workers will not pay for general on-the-job training if contracts are not enforceable. Firms may if there are mobility frictions. Private information about worker productivities, however, prevents workers who quit receiving their marginal products elsewhere. Their new employers then receive...

This paper uses the introduction of the national minimum wage in the UK in April 1999 as a 'natural experiment' to analyse the impact of minimum wages on enrolment in schooling.  At the time of its introduction, only workers aged 18 years or more were covered by the legislation.  The paper...

A large literature describes how local risk sharing networks can help individuals smooth consumption in the face of idiosyncratic economic shocks.  However, when an entire community faces a large covariate shock, and when the transaction costs of transfers are high, these risk sharing networks...

This paper examines recent employment practices among 39 families of Rayalaseema area of Andhra Pradesh, India.  A social class analysis offers a starting point for the study of employment contracts.  Employment practices are diverse, but the habitus of the employers and employees sometimes...

This paper tests the external validity of a simple Dictator Game as a laboratory analogue for a naturally occurring policy-relevant decision-making context.  In Uganda, where teacher absenteeism is a problem, primary school teachers' allocations to parents in a Dictator Game are positively but...

We show that the US in-bond system of imports may be used by firms to illegally avoid trade barriers, a practice known as in-bond diversion.  Digging into official Chinese and Mexican trade statistics, we uncover traces of US quota-hopping in-bond diversion by Chinese exports of textiles and...

Using a specially designed lab-type experiment conducted in the field, we compare the willingness of head teachers, centrally appointed public servants, and community representatives to hold Ugandan primary school teachers to account.  We find no difference in the willingness of centrally...

During the final years of the Multifiber Agreement the US imposed strict import quotas on Chinese apparel while it gave African apparel duty-and quota-free access.  The combination of these policies led to a rapid but ephemeral rise of African exports.  In this paper we argue that the African...

This paper arises from the Global Poverty Research Group (www.gprg.org), under which I have conducted fieldwork in rural south India.  My focus is on strategies, choice, and constraints as aspects of tenants' decisions.  My aim is to treat tenants (as both households and as individual agents)...

This paper explores a pluralist approach to moral economy. Firstly, four schools of thought on the rental of land in India are described. The normatic and ontic assumptions of each school are described. Then I look closely at a debate between two feminist authors, Agarwal and Jackson. The...