Empirical evidence on three assertions commonly-made by population policy advocates about the relationships among population growth, human capital formation and economic development is discussed and evaluated in the light of economic-biological models of household behavior and of its relevance...

This article was presented at a conference organized by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in April 2005, "Urban Dynamics in New York City." The goal of the conference was threefold: to examine the historical transformations of the engine-of-growth industries in New York and distill the main...

I will consider three questions. First, how inefficient is the global allocation of workers and how large are the gains from increased international migration? How do you measure these gains? We will see that standard GDP comparisons are not sufficient. Second, how would reallocating high-skill...

We look at the effects of rainfall forecasts and realized rainfall on equilibrium agricultural wages over the course of the agricultural production cycle. We show theoretically that a forecast of good weather can lower wages in the planting stage, by lowering ex ante out-migration, and can...

We use unique data characterizing individual savings for twins and non-twins in urban China to examine why the savings rates of the young are elevated relative to the middle-aged, despite rising individual life-cycle incomes. We show that inter-generational co-residence masks the true life-cycle...

This paper estimates the gender-specific effects of birthweight on a variety of schooling and labor market outcomes. A unique feature of the study is to use micro evidence on the relationship between birthweight - an early measure of nutritional advantage - and schooling outcomes to make...