This paper provides an introduction and overview of my research on the Economics of Language. The approach is that language skills among immigrants and native-born linguistic minorities are a form of human capital. There are costs and benefits associated with this characteristic embodied in the...

We estimate the effect of early child development on maternal labor force participation using data from teacher assessments. Mothers might react to having a poorly developing child by dropping out of the formal labor force in order to spend more time with their child, or they could potentially...

This microeconometric study analyzes the effects of individual leisure sports participation on long-term labour market variables, on socio-demographic as well as on health and subjective well-being indicators for West Germany based on individual data from the German Socio-Economic Panel study...

We investigate the positive and normative consequences of child-labor restrictions foreconomic aggregates and welfare. We argue that even though the laissez-faire outcome maybe inefficient, there are usually better policies to cure these inefficiencies than the impositionof a child-labor ban...

We present a general model of child labor that incorporates the various componentspresented in the literature as explanations for its existence. Our proposal is to mitigate thephenomenon by encouraging temporary emigration...

Do the short and medium term adjustment costs associated with trade liberalization influenceschooling and child labor decisions? We examine this question in the context of India's 1991tariff reforms. Overall, in the 1990s, rural India experienced a dramatic increase in schoolingand decline in...

We use HILDA data from 2001 - 2006 to analyse the source of the gender wage gap across public- and private-sector wage distributions in Australia. We are particularly interested in the role of gender segregation within sector-specific occupations in explaining relative wages. We find that,...

With the use of comparable data from seven West African capitals, we attempt to assess the rationale behind development policies targeting high rates of school enrolment through the prism of allocation of labour and returns to skills across the formal and informal sectors...

Standard search models are unreliable for structural inference of the underlying sources ofwage inequality because they are inconsistent with observed residual wage dispersion. Weaddress this issue by modeling skill development and duration dependence in unemploymentbenefits in a random on the...