East Germany's unemployment rate still doubles that of West Germany and for the last decade its economic growth has been below that of other transition countries. Policy makers often point to the lack of entrepreneurship as one of East Germany's main problems. This paper addresses the question...

This paper uses same sex sibling composition as a strategy to identify the exogenous effects of childbearing on female labour force participation in South Africa. International studies typically find that sibling sex composition is strong instrument for childbearing, satisfying the two...

This paper examines whether the Bosman ruling plays an important role in the market for native soccer players. Through the abolition of transfer fees after the expiration of contracts, as well as the liberalization of the migration of professional soccer players within the European Union, the...

The female/male average wage ratio has steadily risen from 1983 to 2012. In earlier work, we found that the falling wage gap from 1983 to 1993 was materially detrimental to the average dual-earner family. The female/male wage ratio continued to rise over the following two decades, accompanied by...

This paper uses unique administrative data to expand the understanding of the role women's intermittency decisions play in the determination of their wages. We demonstrate that treating intermittency as exogenous significantly overstates its impact. The intermittency penalty also increases in...

When individuals compare themselves to those with the same wage-rate, status concerns–Keeping up with the Joneses–lead individuals to work who otherwise would have chosen not to, and, for them, well-being is a decreasing function of the wage rate.

Agricultural and other physically demanding sectors are important sources of growth in developing countries but prevalent diseases such as malaria adversely impact the productivity, labor supply, and occupational choice of workers in these sectors by reducing physical capacity.  This study...

Agricultural and other physically demanding sectors are important sources of growth in developing countries but prevalent diseases such as malaria adversely impact the productivity, labor supply, and occupational choice of workers in these sectors by reducing physical capacity. This study...

Volunteering is a dominant social force that signals a healthy state. However, although the literature on volunteering is extensive, knowledge on how life’s discontinuities (life event shocks) affect volunteering is limited because most studies work with static (cross-sectional) data. To...

Has there been an increase in positive assortative mating? Does assortative mating contribute to household income inequality? Data from the United States Census Bureau suggests there has been a rise in assortative mating. Additionally, assortative mating affects household income inequality. In...