Earnings inequality declined rapidly in Argentina, Brazil and Chile during the 2000s. A reduction in the experience premium is a fundamental driver of declines in upper-tail (90/50) inequality, while a decline in the education premium is the primary determinant of the evolution of lower-tail...

Does the culture in which a woman grows up influence her labor market decisions once she has had a child? To what extent might the culture of her present social environment shape maternal labor supply? To address these questions, we exploit the setting of German reunification. A state socialist...

Although coworkers are spending an increasing share of their working time interacting with one another, little is known about how the coordination of hours among heterogenous coworkers affects pay, productivity and labor supply. In this paper, we use new linked employer-employee dataon hours...

We specify and estimate a lifecycle model of consumption, housing demand and labor supply in an environment where individuals may file for bankruptcy or default on their mortgage. Uncertainty in the model is driven by house price shocks, education specific productivity shocks, and catastrophic...

While the effect of higher public debt levels on economic growth has received much attention, the literature partly points to contradictory results. This paper applies meta-regression methods to 826 estimates from 48 primary studies. The unweighted mean of the reported results suggests: a 10...

We conducted a discrete choice experiment to elicit revealed preferences of low-income women for job flexibility. We did so without deception reversing the methodology proposed by Kessler et al. (2019) for job seekers. We contrast the role of flexible time schedule with that of part-time...

The positive association between the service sector share of output and per capita income is one of the best-known regularities in all of growth and development economics. Yet there is less than complete agreement on the nature of that association. Here we identify two waves of service sector...

Is tourism an opportunity for lagging countries in the elusive quest for growth (Easterly, 2002)? Recent empirical evidence suggests that the answer is a cautious yes. Aggregate cross-country data show that tourism specialization is likely to be associated with higher per capita GDP growth rates...

Among fast growing developing countries, India is distinctive for the role of the service sector. However, sceptics have raised doubts about both the quality and sustainability of the increase in service sector activity and its implications for economic development. Using National Accounts...

The growth prospects of a nation are stymied by the burden of government debt. This study has two goals: first, it tests whether public debt hinders growth; and, second, it explores whether economic policy ameliorates this effect. A large panel data of countries for 1970–2010 reveal a negative...