Using Census and CPS data, we show that U.S.-born Mexican Americans who marry non-Mexicans are substantially more educated and English proficient, on average, than are Mexican Americans who marry co-ethnics (whether they be Mexican Americans or Mexican immigrants). In addition, the non-Mexican...

What are the economic consequences to U.S. natives of the growing diversity of American cities? Is their productivity or utility affected by cultural diversity as measured by diversity of countries of birth of U.S. residents? We document in this paper a very robust correlation: US-born citizens...

We model inter-group conflict driven by economic changes within groups. We show that if group incomes are low, increasing group incomes raises violence against that group, and lowers violence generated by it. We then apply the model to data on Hindu-Muslim violence in India. Our main result is...

Computable General Equilibrium models, widely used for the analysis of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) are often criticized for having poor econometric foundations. This paper improves the linkage between econometric estimates of key parameters and their usage in CGE analysis in order to better...

Lack of evidence has been the major obstacle to understanding trends and differences in human welfare over the millennia. This paper explains and applies methods that are obscure to most academics and essentially unknown to the general public. A millennial perspective is best obtained from...

Although we cannot conceive of processes of economic growth that do not involve institutional change, in this essay we outline some reasons why one should be cautious about grounding a theory of growth on institutions. We emphasize how very different institutional structures have often been...

How will free trade affect monetary policy and exchange rate regime choices in the Americas? While the European Union illustrates how the creation of an integrated market in goods and services can enhance monetary cooperation and integration, it is not clear that Europe's experience translates...

Whereas traditional explanations of differences in long-run paths of development across the Americas generally point to the significance of differences in national heritage or religion, we highlight the relevance of stark contrasts in the degree of inequality in wealth, human capital, and...

In contemporary data, the measured factor content of trade is far smaller than its predicted magnitude in the pure Heckscher-Ohlin-Vanek framework, the so-called 'missing trade' mystery. We wonder if this problem has been there from the beginning: that is, we ask if the Heckscher-Ohlin theory...

Using the gravity model, we find evidence of three continental trading blocs: the Americas, Europe and Pacific Asia. Intra-regional trade exceeds what can be explained by the proximity of a pair of countries, their sizes and GNP/capitas, and whether they share a common border or language. We...