We examine the interactions between public and private sector wages per employee inOECD countries. The growth of public sector wages and of public sector employmentpositively affects the growth of private sector wages. Moreover, total factor productivity, theunemployment rate and the degree of...

We present evidence about the role of rent sharing in fostering the interdependence of labourmarkets around the world. Our results draw on a firm-level panel of more than 2,000multinationals and more than 5,000 of their affiliates, covering 47 home and host countries.We find considerable...

This paper studies the interplay between economic incentives and social norms in firms. Weintroduce a general framework to model social norms arguing that norms stem from agents’desire for, or peer pressure towards, social efficiency. In a simple model of team productionwe examine the...

This paper analyses to what extent working conditions in foreign-owned firms differ fromthose in their domestic counterparts. It makes three main contributions. First, we replicate theconsensus in the empirical literature by applying a standardised methodology to firm-leveldata for three...

In this paper, we explore empirically the role of openness, technology and labour marketrigidity in the determination of the effect of the exchange rate on employment in Portugal. Wedevelop an index that allows us to measure labour market flexibility at the sector level. Thisindex shows that...

Reliable information on the characteristics of exporting and non-exporting firms is importantto guide theorists and policy makers in an evidence based way. This holds true especially forGermany, a leading actor on the world markets for goods and services. This paper makesthree contributions...

This paper provides an overview of the complex conceptual and practical challenges thatemerging market economies face as they attempt to reform their frameworks for financialregulation. These economies are striving to balance the quest for financial stability with theimperatives of financial...

By inverting Saez (2002)’s model of optimal income taxation, we characterize theredistributive preferences of the Irish government between 1987 and 2005. The (marginal)social welfare function revealed by this approach is consistently comparable over time andshow great stability despite...

The focus on employer-provided health insurance in the United States may restrict businesscreation. We address the limited research on the topic of “entrepreneurship lock” by usingrecent panel data from matched Current Population Surveys. We use difference-indifferencemodels to estimate the...

In contrast to the very large literature on skill-biased technical change among workers, thereis hardly any work on the importance of skills for the entrepreneurs who employ thoseworkers, and in particular on their evolution over time. This paper proposes a simple theory ofskill-biased change in...