Using data from the 2000 U.S. Census, we document and explore three alternative explanations for the sexual orientation wage gap: occupational sorting, human capital differences, and discrimination. We find lesbian women earn more than their heterosexual counterparts irrespective of marital...

On average, child health outcomes are better in urban than in rural areas of developing countries. Understanding the nature and the causes of this rural-urban disparity is essential in contemplating the health consequences of the rapid urbanization taking place throughout the developing world...

We investigate the effect of broad personality traits - the Big Five - on an individual's decision to become self-employed. In particular, we test an overall indicator of the entrepreneurial personality. Since we find that the level of selfemployment varies considerably across professions, we...

The paper deals with the regulation of professions in Italy. It is a very traditional system of regulation based on inputs control. This regulation is clearly excessive for most of the professions. In fact, market failures - both in terms of information asymmetries and externalities - do not...

The market has both a coordination function and an incentive function. The first theorem of welfare economics is all about coordination; the principal-agent model is all about incentives. What is the relative importance of the market in carrying out these two functions? While there has been a...