Using data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), we make two contributions to the literature on end-of-life transfers. First, we show that unequal bequests are much more common than generally recognized, with one-third of parents with wills planning to divide their estates unequally among...

Although there is a growing interest in subjective well-being (SWB) and its determinants, the extent of socioeconomic inequalities in SWB has not yet been analyzed. This study assesses socioeconomic inequalities in SWB in twelve European countries and the United States (US), by estimating...

To confront existing fears of cultural homogeneization with development, this paper study the relationship between per capita income and the diversity in cultural imports. Two dimensions of diversity are investigated: the number of geographical origins (extensive margin) and the distribution of...

Measuring capabilities is a major challenge for the operationalization of the capability approach. Structural equation models (SEM) are being increasingly used as one possible methodology for estimating capabilities, but a certain skepticism remains about their appropriateness. In this paper, we...

This paper explores the asymmetries in price transmission from international to local markets. We expect the presence of large intermediaries in agricultural markets to lead to a stronger price transmission when international prices decline than when they rise. The empirical evidence confirms...

We develop a framework that integrates natural advantage, agglomeration economies, and firm selection to explain why large cities are both more productive and more unequal than small towns. Our model highlights interesting complementarities among those factors and it matches a number of key...

Does a better cultural milieu make a city more livable for residents and improve its business environment for firms? I address this question by computing a measure of cultural specialization based on detailed occupational data for 346 U.S. metropolitan areas. I then estimate hedonic wage and...

Does a better cultural milieu make a city more livable for residents and improve its business environment for firms? I compute a measure of cultural specialization for 346 U.S. metropolitan areas and ask if differences in cultural environment capitalize into housing price and wage differentials....

This paper studies how a country’s export diversification varies across destination markets. It develops an extension of the Romalis (2004) model which yields two testable predictions. According to the first, exports between similarly endowed countries ("South-South" and "North-North") are...

We develop a framework that integrates natural advantage, agglomeration economies, and firm selection to explain why large cities are both more productive and more unequal than small towns. Our model highlights interesting complementarities among those factors and it matches a number of key...