In this paper, we first present a simple theoretical model of globalization between similar countries to motivate the empirical work that follows. Specifically, we examine the linkages between trade volumes and relative wages in a specialization model along the lines of Ethier (1982). The core of the empirical analysis involves bivariate time-series analysis. There we find some evidence of a re...

We study differential fertility and intergenerational mobility in an overlapping-generations framework with skilled and unskilled individuals. Assuming unskilled parents are less productive in educating children, we show that they choose higher fertility but less investment for child education than skilled parents. Public education reduces the fertility gap but may increase intergenerational mo...

Union membership displayed a n-shaped pattern over the 20th century, while the distribution of income sketched a u. A model of unions is developed to analyze these phenomena. There is a distribution of firms in the economy. Firms hire capital, plus skilled and unskilled labor. Unionization is a costly process. A union decides how many firms to organize and its members wage rate. Simulation of t...

BACKGROUND While 79% of Nigerian mothers who deliver in facilities receive postnatal care within 48 h of delivery, this is only true for 16% of mothers who deliver outside facilities. Most maternal deaths can be prevented with access to timely and competent health care. Thus, the World Health Organization, International Confederation of Midwives, and International Federation of Gynecology and O...

China experienced a sharp increase in wage inequality between unskilled and skilled workers in the late 1990s. Using a sample of 1,500 firms in five Chinese cities with available data for 1998 and 2000, we investigate the role of technology and foreign trade in determining China’s wage inequality. We find evidence that conditional on the technology deployed, trade reduces wage inequality in exp...

This paper analyzes the determinants of the welfare state. In a model that integrates majority voting and lobbying by interest groups, we show how the bargaining power of the unskilled and the skilled workers’ lobby affects the size of the welfare state: The more influential the union representing the unskilled, the greater the extent of redistribution. On the other hand, the presence of depend...

The evolution of the skill premium (i.e., the wage differential between skilled and unskilled workers) has interest from at least two perspectives: it is a rough measure of inequality among workers of different qualifications and provides information on the characteristics of the development process of the economy. In this paper, I investigate empirically the evolution of the skill premium in C...

55. Frank Sammartino, "The Impact of Tax Reform on Income Distribution," (Washington, D.C.: NPA, 1996). 56. Council of Economic Advisers, Economic Report of the President (Washington, D.C.: USGPO, 1996). 57. U.S. Department of Labor, Report on the American Workforce (Washington, D.C.: USGPO, 1995). 58. James Heckman, "Assessing Clinton's Program on Job Training, Workfare, and Education in the W...

The value of an asset has two components, referred to as obvious and obscure. Unskilled traders are only aware of the obvious component and thus overestimate the precision of the information they may acquire. Unskilled traders are overconfident when informed and the intensity at which they trade makes researching the obscure component profitable to skilled traders, and this even when research c...

BACKGROUND When the human body is introduced to a new motion or movement, it learns the placement of different body parts, sequential muscle control, and coordination between muscles to achieve necessary positions, and it hones this new skill over time and repetition. Previous studies have demonstrated definite differences in the smoothness of body movements with different levels of training, i...