New evidence from the 1980, 1990, and 2000 Decennial Census of Housing indicates that expenditure shares on housing are constant over time and across U.S. metropolitan statistical areas (MSA). Consistent with this observation, we consider a model in which identical households with Cobb-Douglas...

Using the framework of Desmet and Rossi-Hansberg (2009), we present a model of spatial takeoff that is calibrated using spatially-disaggregated occupational data for England in c.1710. The model predicts changes in the spatial distribution of agricultural and manufacturing employment which match...

This paper studies an urban growth model where learning through personal contacts could be more effective in a denser locale, whereas the effectiveness of learning through impersonal means of communications depends principally on the technology of communications rather than on the locale in...

The paper studies the optimal distribution of business and residential land in a circular city. Once the optimum is characterized, we analyze the effect of changes in commuting costs and externality parameters. We also propose policies like labor subsidies, land taxes and zoning restrictions...

Do fluctuations of the labor wedge, defined as the gap between the firm's marginal product of labor (MPN) and the household's marginal rate of substitution (MRS), reflect fluctuations of the gap between the MPN and the real wage or fluctuations of the gap between the real wage and the MRS? For...

This paper examines the importance of ex-ante heterogeneity for understanding the relationship between wealth and labor supply when markets are incomplete. An infinite horizon model is estimated where labor supply is indivisible and households are ex-ante heterogeneous in their labor disutility...

I document that workers in newly tradable service occupations possess more occupation-specific human capital and are more highly educated than workers in previously tradable occupations. Motivated by this observation, I develop a dynamic equilibrium model with labor market frictions and specific...

The comovement of gender gaps in hours and wages across countries and skills reveals the presence of net demand forces shaping gender differences in labor market outcomes. This paper links the rich pattern of variation in gender gaps to the process of structural transformation. Based on a...

This paper assesses the trade-off between acquiring specialized skills targeted for a particular occupation and acquiring a package of skills that diversifies risk across occupations. Individual-level data on college credits across subjects and labor market dynamics reveal that diversification...

Consider the following facts. In 1950, the richest countries attained an average of 8 years of schooling whereas the poorest countries 1.3 years, a large 6-fold difference. By 2005, the difference in schooling declined to 2-fold because schooling increased faster in poor than in rich countries....