We analyze the interaction between human capital and growth in Russia, where there are substantial human capital reserves but an education system seriously out of sync with the world economy. We define a rule for the timing of educational restructuring, and show that this time is pareto optimal...

This paper extends an intergenerational context to the prospect of upward mobility hypothesis, showing that the poor majority in democracies may not support massive redistribution for the sake of their children’s educational attainment and upward mobility. We develop an overlapping generations...

We study a developing countries setting in which agglomeration efficiency of urban production attracts rural-to-urban migration, whereas urban pollution deters rural-to-urban migration. By means of a general equilibrium model we study the formation of policies aimed at striking a socially...

This paper examines the roles of quality and increasing returns in trade. It implies that there is intense intra-industry trade among economies with similar levels of per capita income, which increases both the quality and the quantity of consumption. However, there may be no trade in...

This paper provides both a theoretical and an empirical investigation into the impact of job skill types on the black/white pay differentials. The theoretical analysis derives that the more intensively "soft"/"hard" skills are used in an occupation, the greater/smaller the black/white pay...

Drawing on the literature of occupational status and social distance, a theory is developed of labor migration that is prompted by a desire to avoid “social humiliation.” A closed-economy general equilibrium model that incorporates occupational status and examines the interaction between the...

This paper examines the roles of quality and increasing returns in trade. It implies that there is intense intra-industry trade among economies with similar levels of per capita income, which increases both the quality and the quantity of consumption. However, there may be no trade in...

Extending both the “harmful brain drain” literature and the “beneficial brain gain” literature, this paper analyzes both the negative and the positive impact of migration by skilled individuals in a unified framework. The paper extends the received literature on the “harmful brain...

A framework that yields different possible patterns of migration as optimal solutions to a simple utility maximization problem is presented and explored. It is shown that seasonal migration arises as an optimal endogenous response to a comparison of costs (of living and of separation) and...