The objectives of this paper are three-fold. The first is to rebut Charles Kindleberger�s famous dictum that usury �belongs less to economic history than to the history of ideas�; and in particular to demonstrate that the resuscitation of the anti-usury campaign from the early...

We provide new evidence on the long-term impacts of peacetime conscription, using longitudinal data for Portuguese men born in 1967. These men were inducted at age 21, allowing us to use preconscription wages to control for ability differences between conscripts and nonconscripts. We find a...

This paper employs survey data on the reasons to quit of Dutch job changers who entered or left a public sector job in 2001. We show that workers' reasons to quit their public sector job influence their decision to stay in or leave their industry of employment. A bad experience with, for...

We study the pay gap between the public and the private sectors in Croatia just before and in the wake of the recent Great Recession. Using the Labor Force Survey data, we decompose the real hourly wage gap of full-time workers in 2008 and 2011 into the contributions of differences in workers’...

Using Israeli census data, this study provides new evidence on the long-term effects of military service on the earnings of veterans. Among Druze men aged 25-34, we find an economically and statistically significant positive effect of 18% on their wages. The respective effect for the 35-44 age...

This paper compares the wage structure between the public and private sectors in Japan by using a large microdata set covering public and private sector employees. Rather than comparing overall wage levels, we examine the differences in relative wages by gender, age, education, and region....

Using a unique dataset of German members of parliament with information on total earnings including outside income, this paper analyzes the politicians' wage gap (PWG). After controlling for observable characteristics as well as accounting for selection into politics, we find a positive PWG...

The assimilation of immigrants and their children is a burning issue in France. Governments build a large part of their policies on the labor market. The public sector is reputed to integrate minorities better because of its entrance exams and pay-scales. In this paper, a comparison of the...

In this paper we examine the causal impact of competition on management quality. We analyze the hospital sector where geographic proximity is a key determinant of competition, and English public hospitals where political competition can be used to construct instrumental variables for market...

Draft-lottery estimates of the causal effects of Vietnam-era military service using 2000 census data show marked schooling gains for veterans. We argue that these gains can be attributed to Vietnam veterans' use of the GI Bill rather than draft avoidance behavior. At the same time, draft lottery...