We study the effect of culture on important economic outcomes by using the 1970 Census to examine the work and fertility behaviour of women 30-40 years old, born in the US, but whose parents were born elsewhere. We use past female labour force participation and total fertility rates from the...

Three main vantage points are brought together in this paper: (1) Israel’s relatively good economic performance in recent years – at least, in comparison with other Western countries that have still not emerged from the recession; (2) motivations for the wave of social protests that erupted...

We use the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 to show that personal relationships which individuals maintain for non-economic reasons can be an important determinant of regional economic growth. We show that West German households who have social ties to East Germany in 1989 experience a persistent...

Empirical studies in the migration literature have shown that migration enclaves (networks) negatively affect the language proficiency of migrants. These studies, however, ignore the choice of location as a function of language skills. Using data on Mexican migration to the US, we show that...

This Paper addresses the question: why and where do immigrants cluster? We examine the relative importance and interaction of two alternative explanations of immigrant clustering: (1) network externalities and (2) herd behavior. We advance the theory by presenting a framework encompassing both...

The willingness to migrate and locational choice may be influenced by others’ choices or plans, particularly if the ‘other people’, such as family and friends, are migrants, former migrants, or potential migrants themselves. We examine the roles ‘other people’ play in influencing an...

We start our exploration of China’s institutional change by asking what the China experience can tell us about institutional economics and organization theory. We point to under-researched areas such as the formation of firms and the interplay between firms and local politics. Our...

Do legal institutions governing financial contracts affect the nature of real investments in the economy? We develop a simple model and provide evidence that the answer to this question is yes. We consider a levered firm's choice of investment between innovative and conservative technologies, on...