Our purpose here is to challenge the "big-bang" approach to economic history in which some alleged institutional imposition - a deus machine - is claimed to launch a series of new economic behaviors. This so-called prime mover is then carried forward by the inexorable forces of path dependency...

This paper analyses the impact of family background, gender and cohort on educational attainment in France and Germany, relying on a theoretical model imbedded in the human capital theory. In a second step, the educational process is decomposed into school and post-school achievement. The same...

This paper analyses the link between educational attainment and unemployment risk in a French-German comparison, based on a discrete time competing risks hazard rate model applied to comparable microdata sets. The unemployment risk is broken down into the risk of entering unemployment and the...

This paper compares the work attachment of French and German women after childbirth. Both fertility and employment of mothers are higher in France than in Germany. Since the sample of mothers deciding on employment after a child is born might not be representative for all women, we take account...