China's growth record since the start of its economic reforms in 1978 has been extraordinary. Yet, this impressive performance has been associated with an increasing regional income disparity. We use a recently developed nonparametric approach to analyze the variation in labor productivity...

We propose a simple theory of personal income distribution, equilibrium unemployment, and interindustry trade, in which product markets are perfectly competitive and labor markets exhibit search related frictions. Individuals, based on their managerial talent, choose to become self-employed...

This paper develops a two-country, two-sector model of trade where the only difference between two countries is the cost of human capital formation. It is shown that this difference completely shapes the pattern of trade. Trade, in turn, affects the distribution of human capital both at...

This paper develops a monopolistic competition model with heterogeneous firms to study the interaction between technology adoption and trade in a world of two countries facing different technology adoption costs. It shows that a reduction in the technology adoption cost in one country increases...

This paper investigates the impact of mothers' earnings on birth weight and gestational age of infants. It also analyzes the impact of earnings on mothers' consumption of prenatal medical care, and their propensity to smoke and drink during pregnancy. The paper uses census-division- and...

This paper investigates the impact of unskilled workers' earnings on crime. Following the literature on wage inequality and skill-biased technological change, we employ CPS data to create state-year as well as state-year-and (broad) industry specific measures of skill-biased technological...

This paper investigates whether the Democratic Party has any significant effects on unions. Employing Regression Discontinuity (RD) approach on gubernatorial elections in U.S. states over the last three decades, we investigate causal effects of Democratic governors on unionization of workers,...

This paper investigates the significance of Research and Development (R&D) spillovers through intra- and international trade in intermediate goods for productivity growth in a panel of OECD industries during 1973-1994. In the model, four different sources of R&D are identified: R&D conducted in...

This paper considers a world of two symmetric countries with two factors and two sectors. Outputs of the two sectors are imperfect substitutes and sectors differ in relative factor inten- sity. Each sector contains a continuum of heterogenous firms that produce differentiated goods within their...