This paper examines whether the sector bias of skill-biased technical change (SBTC) explains changing skill premia within countries in recent decades. First, using a two-factor, two-sector, two-country model we demonstrate that in many cases it is the sector bias of SBTC that determines SBTC’s...

The U.K. skill premium fell from the 1950s to the late 1970s and then rose very sharply. This paper examines the contributions to these relative wage movements of international trade and technical change. We first measure trade as changes in product prices and technical change as TFP growth....

A common claim in debates about globalization is that economic integration increases worker insecurity. Although this idea is central to both political and academic debates about international economic integration, the theoretical basis of the claim is often not clear. There is also no empirical...

This paper explores the role of knowledge flows and productivity growth by linking direct survey data on knowledge flows to firm-level data on TFP growth. Our data measure the information flows often considered important, especially by policy-makers, such as from within the firm and from...

This paper explores the role of knowledge flows and TFP growth by using direct survey data on knowledge flows linked to firm-level TFP growth data. Our knowledge flow data correspond to the kind of information flows often argued, especially by policy-makers, as important, such as within the...

We use a unique firm-level panel data set of multinational parents and their foreign affiliates to analyse whether profits are shared across borders within multinational firms. Using both fixed-effects and generalized method-of-moments estimators, affiliate wage levels are estimated to respond...

In the absence of distortionary tax and spending policies, freer immigration and trade for a country would often be supported by similar groups thanks to similar impacts on labor income. But government policies that redistribute income may alter the distributional politics. In particular,...

A widespread current policy concern is whether the international integration of product markets forces together wages across countries. To help gain an insight into this issue, this paper analyses the case of the US antebellum transportation revolution. Between 1820 and 1860 an extensive...

In these excerpts from "The Squam Lake Report", fifteen distinguished economists analyze where the global financial system failed, and how such failures might be prevented (or at least their damage better contained) in the future. Although there were many contributing factors to the...

This paper explores the role of knowledge flows and TFP growth by using direct survey data on knowledge flows linked to firm-level TFP growth data. Our knowledge flow data correspond to the kind of information flows often argued, especially by policy-makers, as important, such as within the...