We develop a model in which ethnic minorities can either assimilate to the majority's norm or reject it by trading off higher productivity and wages with a greater social distance to their culture of origin. We show that "oppositional" ethnic minorities reside in more segregated areas, have...

We propose a spatial search-matching model where both job creation and job destruction are endogenous. Workers are ex ante identical but not ex post since their job can be hit by a technological shock, which decreases their productivity. They reside in a city and commuting to the job center...

We develop a model where information about jobs is essentially obtained through friends and relatives, i.e. strong and weak ties. Workers commute to a business center to work and to interact with other people. We find that housing prices increase with the level of social interactions in the city...

We develop a theoretical model in which technology adoption decisions are based on the information received from others about the quality of a new technology and on their risk attitudes. We test the predictions of this model using a randomized field experiment in Bangladesh. We show that the...

We combine two empirical observations in a general equilibrium occupational choice model. The first is that entrepreneurs have more control than employees over the employment of and accruals from assets, such as human capital. The second observation is that entrepreneurs enjoy higher returns to...

What explains the world-wide trend of pro-entrepreneurial policies in the last few decades? We study entrepreneurial policy in a lobbying model taking into account the conflict of interest between entrepreneurs and incumbents. It is shown that international market integration leads to more...

Can educational institutions explain occupational choice between wage employment and entrepreneurship? This paper follows Lazear's (2005) Jack-of-all-trades hypothesis according to which an individual with a more balanced set of abilities is more likely to enter into entrepreneurship. In the...

We survey the literature on social networks by putting together the economics, sociological and physics/applied mathematics approaches, showing their similarities and differences. We expose, in particular, the two main ways of modeling network formation. While the physics/applied mathematics...