This paper focuses on the grassroots of nation-building in times of mass migration. We identify the key factors explaining the rise of societal leaders from the scattered, heterogeneous Jewish communities of Mandatory Palestine between 1920 and 1948. Our empirical strategy relies on a new...

In the last decades, the US has seen narrowing gender employment, wage, and education gaps. The labor market has also faced a shift from physical (“brawn”) to intellectual (“brain”) skill requirements. I rationalize this in a general equilibrium model using two key assumptions: (1) brain...