We examine theoretically and empirically social interactions in labor markets and how policy prescriptions can change dramatically when there are social interactions present. Spillover effects increase labor supply and conformity effects make labor supply perfectly inelastic at a reference group...

Our econometric research allows for a possible response of a person's hours worked to hours typically worked by members of a multidimensional labor market reference group that considers demographics and geographic location. Instrumental variables estimates of the canonical labor supply model...

We examine theoretically demand in a two-good economy where the demand of one good is influenced by either a spillover effect in the form of an externality from other consumers' choices and or a conformity effect representing a need for making similar choices as others. A positive spillover...

We examine the socially optimal wealth distribution in a two-person two-good model with heterogeneous workers and asymmetric social interactions where only one (social) individual derives positive or negative utility from the leisure of the other (non-social) individual. We show that the...

This paper applies generalized Lorenz analysis to income distributions of ten countries using advanced statistical procedures to construct confidence bands around estimates and to generate truncated generalized Lorenz curves to construct a poverty ordering of the countries.

The goal of this paper is threefold. First, to make stochastic dominance comparisons as well as Lorenz orderings for five European countries. Second, to analyze the changes in distributions across time, and third, to explore whether there is evidence of convergence or divergence in European...