This paper shows that utility differences between the self-employed and employees increase with financial development. This effect is not explained by increased profits but by an increased value of non-monetary benefits, in particular job independence. We interpret these findings by building a...

We build a simple model of self-selection into migration and immigration policy determination. We first show that the effect of any immigration policy can be decomposed into a size and a composition effect. We then explore how the optimal policy may change once the latter effect is considered.

We examine the empirical relationship between immigration and crime across Italian provinces during the period 1990-2003. Drawing on police administrative records, we first document that the size of the immigrant population is positively correlated with the incidence of property crimes and with...

This paper shows that utility differences between the self-employed and the employees increase with financial development. This effect is not explained by increased profits but by an increased value of non- monetary benefits, in particular job independence. We interpret these findings by...

I build a simple theory of self-selection into migration and immigration policy formation. I show that any immigration policy affects immigrants skill composition, and this effect may drive the policy outcome in the receiving country. For example, restricting immigration when it is low skilled...

In this paper we examine the empirical relationship between immigration and crime across Italian provinces during the period 1990-2003. Drawing on police administrative data, we first document that the size of immigrant population is positively correlated with the incidence of property crimes...

We explore whether financial constraints matter and which financial constraints matter the most in the choice of becoming an entrepreneur. We exploit a randomly assigned welfare program in rural Mexico to show that cash transfers significantly increase entry into entrepreneurship, thereby...

We consider a purely speculative market with finite horizon and complete information. We introduce partially sophisticated investors, who know the average buy and sell strategies of other traders, but lack a precise understanding of how these strategies depend on the history of trade. In this...

We explore the implications of migrants' self-selection for the determination of immigration policy in a simple model where incentives and resources to migrate vary with skills. We show how self-selection determines the response of potential migrants to immigration policy changes, which is...