In the 1980s, the wages and employment rates of less-skilled Americans fell relative to those of more-skilled workers. This paper examines the contribution of the continuing inflow of less-skilled immigrants and the increasing importance of imports in the U.S. economy to these trends. Our...

This paper examines how costly financial contracting and weak investor protection influence the cross-border operational, financing and investment decisions of firms. We develop a model in which product developers have a comparative advantage in monitoring the deployment of their technology...

American multinational firms respond to politically risky environments by adjusting their capital structures abroad and at home. Foreign subsidiaries located in politically risky countries have significantly more debt than do other foreign affiliates of the same parent companies. American firms...

Affiliate-level evidence indicates that American multinational firms circumvent capital controls by adjusting their reported intrafirm trade, affiliate profitability, and dividend repatriations. As a result, the reported profit impact of local capital controls is comparable to the effect of 24...

This paper considers the effect of taxation on the location of foreign direct investment (FDI) and taxable income reported by multinational firms with particular attention to the regional dynamics of tax competition and the role of chains of ownership. Confidential affiliate-level data are used...

Greater job creation in the US than in Germany has often been related to greater wage dispersion coupled with less regulated labour and product markets in the US. Based on the Comparative German American Structural Database and the International Adult Literacy Survey we find that employment of...

This chapter analyzes the implications of the unexpected 2020-2021 COVID-19 pandemic for work and retirement in the U.S. The pandemic induced the greatest loss of jobs in the shortest period of time in U.S. history. A slow economic recovery would surely have endangered work longer/retire later...

This paper examines the flexibility of wages across industries inthe U.S. and seeks to determine the potential impact which changes in the industrial wage structure may have for employment. With regard to the flexibility of wages across industries, we find that the U.S., alone among the major...

This paper finds that US employment changed differently relative to output in the Great Recession and recovery than in most other advanced countries or in the US in earlier recessions. Instead of hoarding labor, US firms reduced employment proportionately more than output in the Great Recession,...

Many firms encourage employees to own company stock through share plans that subsidize the price at favorable rates, but even so many employees do not buy shares. Using a new survey of employees in a multinational with a share ownership plan, we find considerable variation in joining among...