Theory predicts that mandated employment protections may reduce productivity by distortingproduction choices. Firms facing (non-Coasean) worker dismissal costs will curtail hiringbelow efficient levels and retain unproductive workers, both of which should affectproductivity. These theoretical...

Theory predicts that mandated employment protections may reduce productivity by distorting production choices. Firms facing (non-Coasean) worker dismissal costs will curtail hiring below efficient levels and retain unproductive workers, both of which should affect productivity. These theoretical...

Theory predicts that mandated employment protections may reduce productivity by distorting production choices. Firms facing (non-Coasean) worker dismissal costs will curtail hiring below efficient levels and retain unproductive workers, both of which should affect productivity. These theoretical...

Migration and trade are often linked through ethnic networks boosting bilateral trade. This study uses migration to quantify the importance of Ricardian technology differences for international trade. The framework provides the first panel estimates connecting country-industry productivity and...

High-skilled immigrants are a very important component of U.S. innovation and entrepreneurship. Immigrants account for roughly a quarter of U.S. workers in these fields, and they have a similar contribution in terms of output measures like patents or firm starts. This contribution has been...

How is economic policy made? In this paper we study a key determinant of the answer to the question: lobbying by fi…rms. Estimating a binary choice model of …firm behavior, we fi…nd signifi…cant evidence for the idea that barriers to entry induce persistence in lobbying. The existence of...

We study the impact of skilled immigrants on the employment structures of U.S. …firms using matched employer-employee data. Unlike most previous work, we use the …firm as the lens of analysis to account for a greater level of heterogeneity and the fact that many skilled immigrant admissions...

We study the relationship between ethnicity, occupational choice, and entrepreneurship. Immigrant groups in the United States cluster in specific business sectors. For example, the concentration of Korean self-employment in dry cleaners is 34 times greater than other immigrant groups, and...