People spend a lot of time commuting and often find it a burden. According to economics, the burden of commuting is chosen when compensated either on the labor or on the housing market so that individuals’ utility is equalized. However, in a direct test of this strong notion of equilibrium, we...

Previous migration facilitates future population moves, a phenomenon called network migration. However, thus far, network migration has been closely linked to network externalities. In contrast, this paper argues that the incumbent migration population can actively impact on future migration...

Social interaction is an important vehicle of human capital acquisition and its efficiency decreases in social distance. In this paper I establish that these two premises, given the socio-cultural differences between ethnic groups, explain the puzzling evidence that (i) minorities typically earn...

Social interaction is an important vehicle of human capital acquisition and its efficiency decreases in social distance. In this paper I establish that these two premises, given the socio-cultural differences between ethnic groups, explain the puzzling evidence that (i) minorities typically earn...

We introduce the idea that informational cascades can explain the observed regularity that emigrants from the same locations also tend to choose the same foreign locations. Thus informational cascades generate herd behavior. Herd behavior is compared with the network externalities explanation of...