This paper private individual wealth in France and its distribution during the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries based on individual data of bequests collected from all over France. We focus on the distinction between thos who died rich (with an estate) and those who left nothing behind....

This paper uses a unique database of individual estates to explore the geographical dimension in the historical evolution of the wealth distribution in France since 1820 onwards. We use inequality index decomposition techniques and micro-simulations of wealth distributions to stress the...

Job search models of the labor market establish a very tight correspondance between the determinants of labor turnover and individual wage dynamics on one hand, and the determinants of wage dispersion on the other. This paper offers a systematic examination of wether this correspondance is...

This paper investigates the causal effects of the spatial organization of Brussels on unemployment propensities. Using Census data at the individual level, we estimate the unemployment probability of young adults while taking into account personal, household and neighbourhood characteristics. We...

This paper studies multi-unit ascending (English) auctions with a buyer’s option. The buyer’s option gives the winner of an auction the right to purchase any number of units at the winning price. We develop a theoretical model and derive the optimal strategies for the bidders. The model...

This article aims at testing whether child labor is caused by poverty. Tests are designed for rural areas in a setting characterized by the absence of a labor market. A model of rural household labor supply is developed that provides testable implications of two different poverty hypotheses. We...

We consider an equilibrium search model with on-the-job search where firms set wages. If employers are perfectly aware of all workers' job opportunities, then when an employee receives an outside job offer, it is optimal for his employer to try to retain him by matching the offer, so long as the...

This paper develops an axiomatic construction of preferences that allows to compare lotteries involving lives of different lengths. Our axioms which basically formalize two assumptions - individuals are rational and have stationary preferences - leads to a class of utility functions that is much...