This paper studies how differences in the size of barriers to capital accumulation can account for differences in long run economic development paths. In this model barriers affect both the beginning date and the pace of the modern economic growth. A fundamental property of the model is that...

We present evidence from a firm level experiment in which we engineered an exogenous change in managerial compensation from fixed wages to performance pay based on the average productivity of lower-tier workers. Theory suggests that managerial incentives affect both the mean and dispersion of...

This paper investigates long-term returns from unemployment compensation, exploiting variation from the UK JSA reform of 1996, which implied a major increase in job search requirements for eligibility and in the related administrative hurdle. Search theory predicts that such changes should raise...

This study analyses recent changes in collective bargaining institutions and their implications for employer strategies in the French and German telecommunications industries, drawing on case studies and survey data from call centre workplaces. Findings demonstrate that differences in both...

In a rapidly globalizing economy, and particularly in the face of a process of economic integration such as that occurring in the European Union, regions forge an increasing number of linkages with other locations within and across national boundaries through the local technological development...

Studies on Indian artisans in the recent times have tended to be guided by the notion of a world market which, it is believed, drove them towards obsolescence through changing tastes or productivity. This framework, however, is not without problems. First, the presence of older industries in...

This paper examines the impact of trade unions in the US and the UK and elsewhere. In both the US and the UK, despite declining membership numbers, unions are able to raise wages substantially over the equivalent non-union wage. Unions in other countries, such as Australia, Austria, Brazil,...

This paper estimates the size of the union membership wage premium by comparing wage outcomes for unionised workers with ''matched'' non-unionised workers. The method assumes selection on observables. For this identifying assumption to be plausible, one must be able to control for all...

We use a simple job search model to explain the doubling of mean hourly earnings of white males, and the five-fold increase in their variance, during the first 18 years of labor market experience. For this purpose we embody minimum wage regulations and imperfect compliance in a job search model...

Some recent empirical findings suggest that there are intrinsic links between the statistical regularities regarding cohort survival patterns, the persistence of firm turnover, and shakeout during an industry life-cycle. This paper presents a theoretical model which explains these regularities...