During the last few decades, aggregate wage growth has been very unevenly distributed across space in Germany. While wages in Southern German local labor markets rose by up to 28 log points, they increased only modestly or even declined in the north. Similar results apply to employment changes....

This paper studies how birth town migration networks affected long-run location decisions during historical U.S. migration episodes. We develop a new method to estimate the strength of migration networks for each receiving and sending location. Our estimates imply that when one randomly chosen...

We analyze and assess new evidence on employment dynamics from a new data source the National Establishment Time Series (NETS). The NETS offers advantages over existing data sources for studying employment dynamics, including tracking business establishment relocations that can contribute to job...

Analyses of ethnic and racial wage differentials neglect the fact that minorities cluster in urban and in more deprived areas. This paper estimates ethnic wage differentials by comparing minorities to the majority in the same local labour market and therefore facing similar socio-economic...

We study the effect of childbirth on local and non-local employment dynamics for both men and women using Belgian social security and geo-location data. Applying an event-study design that accounts for treatment effect heterogeneity, we show that 75 percent of the effect of the birth of a first...

The literature has pointed to different causes to explain the productivity gap between Europe and United States in the last decades. This paper tests the hypothesis that the lower European productivity performance in comparison with the US can be explained not only by a lower level of corporate...

When investing in research and development (R&D), institutions must decide whether to take a top-down approach - soliciting a particular technology - or a bottom-up approach in which innovators suggest ideas. This paper examines a reform to the U.S. Air Force Small Business Innovation Research...

Defensive innovations in developed countries can explain the empirical phenomenon that openness towards trade with less-developed countries does not necessarily induce a substantial increase in the wage differential and trade volumes. Building on step-by-step innovations as introduced by Aghion...

We test how a reduction in travel cost affects the rate and direction of scientific research. Using a fine-grained, scientist-level dataset within chemistry (1991-2012), we find that after Southwest Airlines enters a new route, scientific collaboration increases by 50%, an effect that is...

Important gender differences in earnings and career trajectories persist. Particularly, in professions such as business. Gender differences in competitiveness have been proposed as a potential explanation. Using an incentivized measure of competitiveness, this paper investigates whether...