We introduce a new task-based framework to describe production. It focuses on the fact that certain tasks are too complex for many workers to perform. In such an environment, the relationship between wages of workers may significantly differ from their relative productivities. The labor market...

The main function of hierarchies is to coordinate activities within an organisation, but a hierarchical structure also provides work incentives, by offering the prospect of hierarchical mobility. An alternative way for organisations to motivate workers is through job design. In organisations...

Intangible knowledge capital (IKC) – technology produced by workers but not embodied in them – can offset the "middle income trap" as China exhausts the benefits of international technology transfer. IKC is productivity-enhancing among Chinese enterprises – more so in domestically owned...

Governments are increasingly concerned about the capacity of pensions systems to meet demands in the coming years. According to the OECD, one part of the policy response in many countries will be greater private provision on the part of individuals through occupational and other pension...

Empirical studies in the economics of education, the measurement of skill gaps across demographic groups, and the impacts of interventions on skill formation rely on psychometrically validated test scores that record the proportion of items correctly answered. Test scores are sometimes taken as...

Using the entire population of USPTO patent applications published between 2002 and 2019, and leveraging on both patent classification and semantic analysis, this paper aims to map the current knowledge base centred on robotics and AI technologies. These technologies are investigated both as a...

In the last decades, international trade has increased between industrialised countries and between high- and low-wage countries. This important change has raised questions on how international trade affects the labour market. In this spirit, this paper aims to investigate the impact of...

We develop a collective household model with spousal matching in which there exists marital gains to assortative matching and marriage quality for each couple is revealed ex post. Changes in alimony laws are shown to affect existing couples and couples-to-be differently. For existing couples,...

This article experimentally examines voluntary contributions when group members' marginal returns to the public good vary. The experiment implements two marginal return types, low and high, and uses the information that members have about the heterogeneity to identify the applied contribution...