The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effects of geography on the transition process in authoritarian political regimes, and to investigate the nature of the links between political change, economic reforms and geographic location. A simple model of transition and democratization is...

Since the seminal work of Becker, the analysis of endogenous fertility has been based on the trade-off faced by parents between the quantity and the quality of their children. In order to have an interior solution, the model assumes that in case children work, still they get positive income from...

This paper proposes an explanation for the decrease in social mobility that has occurred in the last two decades in a number of advanced economies, as well as for the divergence in mobility dynamics across countries. Within an intergenerational framework, we show that a two-tier higher education...

The aim of this paper is to examine the evolution of recruitment of elites and to investigate the nature of the links between recruitment and training of elites and economic development. We show that there was a key shift at the turn of the nineteenth century in the way the Western world trained...

This paper presents a model of fertility, which is specific for the industrialization that took place during the nineteenth century and which was concurrent with the demographic transition that occurred over the period. While previous research on demographic transition assumed altruism as the...

From the canonical model of Becker onward, models of population dynamics have been based on assumptions which fit the family structure of developed countries. The aim of this paper is to develop a framework that fits the family structure of poor countries. The building blocks of the model...

The purpose of this study is to isolate the factors influencing universities’ quality. An interesting fact is that of the ten top-rated US universities, nine are private. Therefore, previous studies have claimed that there is a correlation between universities being private and their quality....

This paper analyzes the interconnection between elites and its effects on economic growth. For decades, the bureaucratic elite has been joining the business elite after leaving office, and this in growing numbers. This relationship has been termed “the revolving door” in English,...

Globalization has led to a vast flow of migration of workers but also of students. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the migration of individuals encompassing decisions already at the level of education. We develop a “unified brain drain” model that incorporates the decisions of an...