Measuring the Gains from Labor Specialization

Measuring potential gains from specialization under non-convex technologies

In this paper, the Free Coordination Hull (FCH) approach developed by Green and Cook (2004) is combined with the Free Disposal Hull (FDH) model to detect potential gains from specialization. As a non-convex approach that allows both directly observed and summed Decision Making Units to define the production technology, FCH is the relevant model for analysing optimal reallocation of activity amo...

Labor Specialization, Ethnicity, and Metropolitan Labor Markets

This paper provides an empirical assessment of the extent to which co-ethnic workers are underor overrepresented in industry and occupation-based employment sectors based on the characteristics of workers themselves, attributes and resources of ethnic groups in which workers are affiliated, and characteristics of metropolitan areas. Specifically, the paper evaluates two claims found in the lite...

Labor Specialization and Endogenous Growth

On Measuring the Welfare Gains from Trade under Consumer Heterogeneity

I develop a multi-country multi-industry model of trade that features heterogeneous consumers with non-homothetic preferences. I use the model to quantify the measurement errors in the welfare gains estimates caused by the assumption of a representative consumer (ARC). First, I reduce the world level of all trade costs by 15% and find that ARC overestimates (underestimates) the gains of the poo...

Who Gains from Child Labor? A Politico-Economic Investigation

This paper develops a positive theory of the adoption of child labor restrictions (CLR). The key mechanism in our model is an interaction between parental decisions on family size and their preferences for CLR. While parents with few children have little to gain from child labor and are therefore likely to favor CLR, parents with many working children would be expected to oppose CLR. Fertility ...