We use a unique sample of Russian immigrant and natives in Israel to examine the return to English knowledge. In cross-section estimates there is a significant return to English knowledge for both immigrants and natives with high levels of education. Language acquisition is an important element...

We compare the long-run eects of replacing unconditional transfers to the poor by transfers conditional on the education of children. Unlike the Mirrlees income taxation model, the distribution of skill evolves endogenously. Human capital accumulation follows the...

A century ago, everyone thought time and distance were well defined physical concepts. But neither proved absolute. Instead, measures/reports of time and distance were found to depend on one’s reference point, specifically one’s direction and speed of travel, making our apparent physical...

This paper studies the problem of estimation and inference in cointegrated regression models with multiple structural changes. Our framework is general enough to incorporate both stationary and integrated regressors. Both pure and partial structural change models are analyzed. We derive the...

Aggregate consumption growth risk explains why low interest rate curren- cies do not appreciate as much as the interest rate di®erential and why high interest rate currencies do not depreciate as much as the interest rate di®er- ential. Domestic investors earn negative excess returns on low...

In most contemporary economies loan contracts cannot mandate imprison- ment or other non-pecuniary punishments for defaulting debtors. A possible rationale for contracting restrictions of this type is that imprisonment imposes negative externalities on individuals not party to the original loan...

Public debates on electricity policy in Hong Kong focus on the regulation regime but sel- dom discuss the macroeconomic impact. In this paper, we use the novel dataset on electricity consumption and report the following ?ndings: (1) there is a long run equilibrium relationship between real GDP...

We consider the CUSUM of squares test in a linear regression model with general mixing assumptions on the regressors and the errors. We derive its limit distribution and show how it depends on the nature of the error process. We suggest a corrected version that has a limit distribution free of...