We model an OLG economy where productivity growth comes from two alternative sources: process innovation and learning-by-doing. There is a trade-off between the two in so far as frequent technological updates reduce the scope for learning on existing technologies. A conflict is shown to arise...

We analyze a tree-period OLG model, where a consumption good is produced by means of skilled labor and an intermediate good. Human capital accumulation depends on the aggregate stock of human capital and on the fraction of time that children spend at school, which is decided by their parents....

This paper proposes an explanation for why universal suffrage has not implied larger rich-to-poor transfers of wealth. The main argument is that, in the presence of borrowing constraints, if current taxation finances (at least partially) policies that redistribute future income, the poor, who...

Equally, poor countries display similar compulsory schooling laws but different levels of child labor and school attendance. This paper provides an explanation for the existence of child labor, which relies on the imperfect enforcement of compulsory schooling laws and is consistent with the...

This paper investigates the economic consequences of international migration from the point of view of destination countries. Consistently with international evidence on migration flows, we build a model where the migration rate is higher among the highlyeducated. A negative relationship is...

We study the interactions between technological innovation, investment in human capital and child labor. In our setting new technologies require new skills and new skills can be developed only through schooling. In a two-stage game, first firms decide on innovation, then households decide on...

This paper studies the determinants of immigration policy in an economy with entrepreneurs and workers where a trade union has monopoly power over wages. The presence of the union leads a benevolent government to implement a high level of immigration and induces a welfare loss not only from an...

We empirically investigate whether the persistence of politicians in political institutions affects the innovation activity of firms. We use 12,000 firm-level observations from three waves of the Italian Observatory over Small and Medium Enterprises, and introduce a measure of political...

Differently from Atkinson and Morelli (2011) who detect no clear link between increases in income inequality and systemic banking crises, we show that a large majority of crises occurred between 1982 and 2008 have been preceded by persistently high levels of income inequality. Such association...

We identify the degree of intergenerational altruism in an OLG framework à la Barro exploiting the quasi-experimental variation generated by reforms of bequest taxation (estate or inheritance tax, in the U.S.) and taxes on inter vivos real estate donations (gift tax, in the U.S.) that were...