Among the most prominent theoretical frameworks dealing with the economic underlyings of firms' make-or-buy decisions are Transaction Cost Economics (TCE) and the Resource Based View (RBV). Relying on panel data covering 107 European firms over eight years, I test predictions from both TCE and...

For a large set of countries, we document how the labor earnings inequality varies with GDP per capita. As countries get richer, the mean-to-median ratio and the Gini coefficient decline. Yet, this decline masks divergent patterns: while inequality at the top of the earnings distribution falls,...

Human resources are a key factor for firm success, particularly nowadays when most industrial economies face an increasing shortage of qualified labour. With their pooled labour markets, regional clusters have been shown to be a preferable location for firms in order to satisfy their demand for...

This paper studies how cross-country differences in labor market institutions shape the pattern of international trade, focusing on workers' skill acquisition. I develop a model in which workers undertake non-contractible activities to acquire firm specific skills on the job. In the model,...

Financial constraints are an important impediment to the growth of small businesses. We study theoretically and empirically how the financial constraints of agents affect their decisions to exert effort, and, hence the organizational decisions and growth of principals, in the context of...

Financial constraints are an important impediment to the growth of small businesses. We study theoretically and empirically how the financial constraints of agents affect their decisions to exert effort, and, hence the organizational decisions and growth of principals, in the context of...