This paper considers a simple model of self-fulfilling expectations that leads to a multiple equilibrium of gender gaps in wages and participation rates. Rather than resorting to moral hazard problems related to unobservable effort, like in most of the related literature, our model fully relies...

This paper uses British panel data to investigate single women´s labour supply changes inresponse to three tax and benefit policy reforms that occurred in the 1990s. These reformschanged individuals´ work incentives and we use them to identify changes in labour supply.We find evidence of small...

This paper examines the effects of the Working Families´ Tax Credit (WFTC) on couples inBritain. We develop a simple model of household decisions which explicitly accounts for therole played by the tax and benefit system. Its main implications are then tested using paneldata from the British...

One theory for why there is a strong education gradient in health outcomes is that more educated individuals more quickly absorb new information about health technology. The MMR controversy in the UK provides a case where, for a brief period of time, some highly publicized research suggested...

Using microdata from the 2000 U.S. Census, we analyze the responses of Mexican Americans to questions that independently elicit their ethnicity (or Hispanic origin) and their ancestry. We investigate whether different patterns of responses to these questions reflect varying degrees of ethnic...

Little is known about why cohabiting couples have fewer children than married couples. Weexplore the factors that explain the difference in fertility between these two groups using aswitching regression analysis, which enables us to quantify the contribution of differentfactors through a...

This paper contributes to the already vast literature on demography-induced internationalcapital flows by examining the role of labor market imperfections and institutions. We setup atwo-country overlapping generations model with search unemployment, which we calibrateon EU15 and US data. Labor...

Theory predicts that mandated employment protections may reduce productivity by distortingproduction choices. Firms facing (non-Coasean) worker dismissal costs will curtail hiringbelow efficient levels and retain unproductive workers, both of which should affectproductivity. These theoretical...

During the 1980s and 1990s, the Netherlands experienced a strong increase in the labourforce participation of women. This study investigates the increase of participation over thesuccessive generations of women, and produces an educated guess for future participation.For this purpose, we...