Owing to past structural reforms, Costa Rica has enjoyed robust GDP growth and productivity levels are gradually converging towards the OECD average. However, large GDP per capita and productivity gaps persist. In addition, not everyone has benefited from this growth. Inequality has increased...

The shrinking number of workers due to smaller young cohorts entering the labour market and large-scale outward migration are undermining Bulgaria’s growth prospects, the sustainability of its social institutions and society more widely. Bulgaria needs to provide more support for families and...

This paper analyzes the determinants of participation rate movements in Canada from the early 1950s through the 1970s, with a particular focus on the socio-economic determinants of the changing labour force attachment of successive cohorts of adult men and women and young persons, and develops...

This paper empirically tests the hypothesis that landed elites may block technological change and economic development if they fear that they will lose future political power (Acemoglu and Robinson (2002, 2006, and 2012). It exploits a plausible exogenous change in the distribution of political...

We analyze investment decisions when information is costly, with and without delegation to an agent. We use a rational-inattention model and compare it with a canonical signal-extraction model. We identify three "investment conditions". In "sour" conditions, no information is acquired and no...

Technological change is transforming Ireland’s economic structures, leading to new jobs and innovative products that benefit consumers. Adoption of new technologies by businesses has been high relative to many other OECD economies, but it has been uneven across industries and the impact on...

Employment discrimination contributes significantly to depressing labor force participation and employment rates of older workers. Actual discrimination reduces employers’ demand for older workers’ labor, while older workers’ perception of workplace and labor market discrimination reduces...

China, like a number of other antitrust jurisdictions, has a law concerning unfair pricing. This article develops an economic framework for applying the unfair pricing law in China. The framework draws on the experience of courts and competition authorities in other jurisdictions and the...

Many studies have been conducted to analyze the effect of stricter Employment Protection Legislation (EPL). However, almost all of them has focused on an ex-post impact; leaving aside a second but equally important channel: expectations. This paper aims to analyze the role of expectations on...