This paper estimates the response of the unemployment rate and labor force participation rate to exogenous variation in the youth share of the working age population, using cross-state variation in lagged birth rates as an instrumental variable. A one percent increase in the youth share reduces...

The economies of the less developed countries are about to face perhaps the greatest challenge in their histories: generating a sufficient number of jobs at reasonable wages to absorb their rapidly growing populations into productive employment. In terms of absolute magnitude, this challenge has...

This paper estimates the response of the unemployment rate and labor force participation rate to exogenous variation in the youth share of the working age population, using cross-state variation in lagged birth rates as an instrumental variable. A one percent increase in the youth share reduces...

This paper presents new econometric methods for the empirical analysis of individual labor market histories. The techniques developed here extend previous work on continuous time models in four ways: (1) A structural economic interpretation of these models is presented. (2) Time varying...

This paper assesses the impact of the post WWII baby boom on relative wages, when this baby boom cohort becomes the oldest segment of the workforce. Time series data are used to estimate a model of the demand for workers in eight age/sex groupings. Using these estimates, we simulate relative...

This paper surveys recent research on the labor force in the nineteenth century. I examine trends in the aggregate size, demographic, occupational and industrial composition of the labor force; short-run and long-run movements in nominal and real wages; hours of work; the development of the...

Large shocks to local labor markets can cause long-lasting changes to employment, unemployment and the local labor force. This study examines the relationship between mass layoffs and the long-run size of the local labor force. It considers four main channels through which the local labor force...

Concerns that there are problems with the supply of skills, especially education-related skills, in the US labor force have exploded in recent years with a series of reports from employer-associated organizations but also from independent and even government sources making similar claims. These...

What are the economic determinants of a firm's market value? We answer this question through the lens of a generalized neoclassical model of investment with physical capital, quasi-fixed labor, and two types of intangible capital, knowledge and brand capital as inputs. We estimate the structural...

Population aging is widely assumed to have detrimental effects on economic growth yet there is little empirical evidence about the magnitude of its effects. This paper starts from the observation that many U.S. states have already experienced substantial growth in the size of their older...