Critics of U.S. high-skilled guest worker visa programs argue that 1) program regulations tie workers to their sponsoring firm, creating working conditions akin to indentured servitude and that 2) the pro- grams lack a vehicle for adjusting downward the number of visas avail- able during a...

This paper develops a two-country, two-sector model of trade where the only difference between two countries is the cost of human capital formation. It is shown that this difference completely shapes the pattern of trade. Trade, in turn, affects the distribution of human capital both at...

This paper develops a monopolistic competition model with heterogeneous firms to study the interaction between technology adoption and trade in a world of two countries facing different technology adoption costs. It shows that a reduction in the technology adoption cost in one country increases...

This paper incorporates home production into a dynamic general equilibrium model of overlapping generations with endogenous retirement to study Social Secu- rity reforms. As such, the model di¤erentiates both consumption goods and labor e¤ort according to their respective roles in home...

We revisit the idea that colonized countries that were more (less) economically advanced in 1500 became poorer (richer, respectively) by the late 20th century. Using data on place of origin of today’s country populations and the urbanization and population density measures used by Acemoglu et...

We document the growth in higher education costs and tuition over the past 50 years. To explain these trends, we develop a general equilibrium model with skill- and sector-biased technical change. Finding the model’s parameters through a combination of estimation and calibration, we show that...

We investigate the impact of the Affordable Care Act's dependent coverage mandate on insurance premiums. The expansion of dependent coverage under the ACA allows young adults to remain on their parent's private health insurance plans until the age of 26. We find that the mandate has led to a...

We consider involuntary and voluntary cost increases in Carnegie I and II private research universities, where we find that voluntary cost increases are over three times as high as involuntary cost increases. As is the case with public research universities, private universities economized on...

This paper examines whether access to public transportation reduces the probability of food insecurity for households. The dataset combines information from the Current Population Survey Food Security Supplement (CPS-FSS) and the National Transit Database for the period of 2006 to 2009. I...

Our analysis is intended to shed light on the issue of whether monetary policy contributed to the recent housing boom and bust. We have estimated and analyzed a model that allows a comparison between actual policy and several alternative Taylor Rules. When the Taylor Rule path was computed using...