We provide comparable evidence on the patterns and trends in obesity across the Atlantic and analyse whether there are economic rationales for public intervention to control obesity. We take into account equity issues as well as efficiency considerations, which are organized around three...

We study the impact of barriers to entry on workplace training. Our theoretical model indicates that there are two contrasting effects of deregulation on training. With a given number of firms, deregulation reduces the size of rents per unit of output that firms can reap by training their...

Using data from 12 European countries and the variation across countries and over time in the changes of minimum school leaving age, we study the effects of the quantity of education on the distribution of earnings. We find that compulsory school reforms significantly affect educational...

This paper explores the economic consequences of the enlargement of the European Union with countries from Central and Eastern Europe. We focus on integration aspects that go beyond the reduction of formal trade barriers, namely accession to the internal market and free movement of labour. The...

This paper investigates whether joint economic and political integration leads to larger economic benefits than just economic integration. The identification strategy rests on the fact that Norway, at the time of the 1995 Enlargement of the European Union (EU), had successfully completed...