I study data on bribes actually paid by individuals to public officials, viewing the results through a theoretical lens that considers the implications of trust networks. A bond of trust may permit an implicit quid pro quo to substitute for a bribe, which reduces corruption. Appropriate networks...

The United States has a teenage birth rate that is high relative to that of other developed countries, and falling more slowly. Children of teenagers may experience difficult childhoods and hence be more likely to commit crimes subsequently. I assess to what extent lagged teen birth rates can...

Since monetary union with western Germany on 1 July 1990, eastern female monthly wages have risen by 10 percentage points relative to male wages, but female employment has fallen 5 percentage points more than male employment. Using the German Socio-Economic Panel to study the years 1990-1994, I...

Following monetary union with west Germany in June 1990, the median real monthly wage of prime age east German workers rose by 83% in six years. I use the German Socio-Economic Panel data to investigate the determinants of this wage growth and some of its implications. For the 1990-1991 period I...

Equating a job with an individual rather than an occupation, we re-examine whether U.S. workers are increasingly concentrated in low and high-wage jobs relative to middle-wage jobs, a phenomenon known as employment polarization. By assigning workers in the CPS to real hourly wage bins with...

We measure the extent to which skilled immigrants increase innovation in the United States by exploring individual patenting behavior as well as state-level determinants of patenting. The 2003 National Survey of College Graduates shows that immigrants patent at double the native rate, and that...

We provide a theoretical framework for understanding when an official angles for a bribe, when a client pays, and the payoffs to the client's decision. We test this framework using a new data set on bribery of Peruvian public officials by households. The theory predicts that bribery is more...

An influential strand of research has tested for the effects of immigration on natives' wages and employment using exogenous refugee supply shocks as natural experiments. Several studies have reached conflicting conclusions about the effects of noted refugee waves such as the Mariel Boatlift in...