We extend Bresnahan and Reiss’s (1991) model of local oligopoly to allow firm entry and exit over time.In our framework, entrants have to incur sunk costs in order to enter a market. After becomingincumbents, they disregard these entry costs in deciding whether to continue operating or to...

A unique data set on home use of computers and the Internet is used to investigate the tradeoffsbetween physically commuting to a work site and telecommuting from home via computers. Thestudy further investigates whether individuals who work from home receive greatercompensation relative to...

The Iowa Department of Public Health has undertaken several independent projects to evaluate various aspects of the labor environment affecting Iowa healthcare over the recent past. This research expands upon the results of these efforts to estimate the effects of a number of wage and nonwage...

Students in majors with higher average quantitative GRE scores are less likely to attend graduateschool while students in majors with higher average verbal GRE scores are more likely to attendgraduate school. This sorting effect means that students whose cognitive skills are associatedwith lower...

This article illustrates the commonly overlooked sample selection probleminherent in using rural classification methods that change over time due to populationchanges. Since fast growing rural areas grow out of their rural status, using recent ruraldefinitions excludes the most successful places...

Across nine transition economies, it is the young, educated, English-speaking workers with thebest access to local telecommunications infrastructures that work with computers. Theseworkers earn about 25% more than do workers of comparable observable skills who do not usecomputers. Controlling...

The transition to market in Slovenia created labor displacements that were on par or greater than thatexperienced in North America in the 1980s. A simple theoretical model suggests that factors which raisethe probability of layoff should also increase the probability of a quit, predictions that...

Using a unique sample of new Ph.D. economists in 1987 and 1997, we examine how jobseekers and their employers alter their search strategies in strong versus weak markets. The 1987academic market was strong while the 1997 market was much weaker. A multimarket theory ofoptimal search suggests that...

This survey reviews the existing literature, identifying the contribution of agriculture, schooling, and nutrition to economic growth and development over time and across countries. Particular attention is paid to the roles of improvements in agricultural technology and of the human capital of...

School autonomy and parental participation have been frequently proposed as ways of making schools more productive. Less clear is how governments can foster decentralized decision-making by local schools. This paper shows that across eight Latin-American countries, most of the variation in local...