What caused the baby boom? And, can it be explained within the context of the secular decline in fertility that has occurred over the last 200 years? The hypothesis is that: 1. The secular decline in fertility is due to the relentless rise in real wages that increased the opportunity cost of...

What drove western population growth in the U.S. during the 19th century? The facts are: (i) Natural increase was higher in the West than in the East; and (ii) in the early stages of the settlement process, net migration could account for up to 80% of population growth in some regions. A general...

This paper studies the role of public policy to promote efficiency in human capital accumulation in the representative agent framework. Agents accumulate human capital by spending time in home study and in publicly provided schools. The individual faces an aggregate externality in the...

In many professional labor markets the number of new workers follows a cyclical time path. This phenomenon is usually explained by means of a cobweb model that is based on the assumptions of myopic wage expectations and occupational immobility. Since both assumptions are questioned by the...