Entrepreneurship contributes to business dynamics in all economies, and the individual benefits of starting a business are clear. Nonetheless, access to business start-ups may not be available to all people because of resource constraints. Using a unique new data set for the United States, we...

Growth of human capital, defined as the change in the fraction of a metropolitan area's labor force with a bachelor's degree, is typically viewed as generating a number of desirable outcomes, including economic growth. Yet, in spite of its importance, few empirical studies have explored why some...

For the first time, nationally representative data on women's employment histories are used to study the gap between women's and men's pay in Great Britain. It is decomposed into a gap attributable to gender differences in human capital characteristics (such as education, work experience, and...

An incomplete markets life-cycle model with indivisible labour makes career lengths and human capital accumulation respond to labour tax rates and government supplied non-employment benefits. We compare aggregate and individual outcomes in this individualistic incomplete markets model with those...

Until 1970, the New York Stock Exchange prohibited public incorporation of member firms. After the rules were relaxed to allow joint stock firm membership, investment-banking concerns organized as partnerships or closely-held private corporations went public in waves, with Goldman Sachs (1999)...

While the theoretical literature on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) focuses largely on movements in capital and firm specific technology, recent empirical evidence emphasizes primarily the local human capital necessary to absorb FDI technology. We examine how human capital affects FDI and add a...

Survey data indicate that different dimensions of health affect the wages of men and women in urban Brazil. Height has a large and significant effect on wages: taller men and women earn more. Body mass index (BMI) is associated with higher wages of males, especially among the less-educated,...

This paper studies the evolution of Venezuelan inequality since 1970. It finds a striking increase in Venezuelan inequality that has been due mainly to the rise in capital's share of GDP.