Using data from representative population surveys in 17 countries, we find that the lower rate of female business ownership is primarily due to women’s lower propensity to start businesses rather than to differences in survival rates across genders. We show that women are less confident in their entrepreneurial skills, have different social networks and exhibit higher fear of failure than men. ...

Migration, Transfers and Child Labor We examine agricultural child labor in the context of emigration, transfers, and the ability to hire outside labor. We start by developing a theoretical background based on Basu and Van, (1998), Basu, (1999) and Epstein and Kahana (2008) and show how hiring labor from outside the household and transfers to the household might induce a reduction in children’s...

This paper develops and estimates a simple on-the-job search model with skills accumulation. In our model, contrary to previous works, skills are not fully firm-specific nor general but partially transferable. When a worker experience a job transition from firm A to firmB a fraction τ of the skills are lost where τ depends on some distance between firm A and B. In this framework the interaction...

This article analyzes the impact of stochastic skill-biased technological change on earnings inequality in a general equilibrium OLG model. Wage dispersion is determined by the heterogeneity of skills by allowing for productivity differences due to education, ability, and age. The model performs well in reproducing stylized facts on the time pattern of the U.S. wage distribution and human capit...

This paper examines the incentive effects of different payoff structures in the National Hockey League. A rule change prior to the 1999-2000 season, which changed the way that teams were awarded points in overtime games, provides a natural experiment to test the reaction of teams to a change in the payoff structure. The rule change had the desired effect of increasing excitement during overtime...

Profit Sharing and Workplace Productivity: Does Teamwork Play a Role? The conditions under which profit sharing affects workplace productivity have never been fully understood. Using panel data, this paper examines whether there is any link between adoption of an employee profit sharing plan and subsequent productivity growth in Canadian establishments, and whether this relationship is affected...

We use experimental data from a résumé audit to estimate the impact of particular college majors and internship experience on employment prospects. Despite applying exclusively to business-related job openings, we find no evidence that business degrees improve employment prospects. By contrast, internship experience increases the interview rate by 14 percent. The returns to internship experienc...

The paper analyzes the gender pay gap in private-sector management positions based on German panel data and using fixed-effects models. It deals with the effect of occupational sex segregation on wages, and the extent to which wage penalties for managers in predominantly female occupations are moderated by firm size. Drawing on economic and organizational approaches and the devaluation of women...

Performance Pay, Training and Labor Mobility Market imperfections may cause firms and workers to under-invest in specific training. This paper shows that profit sharing may be a suitable instrument to enhance specific training investments, either by enhancing wage flexibility or by increasing the returns to training. As a result, profit sharing not only increases productivity by means of an eff...

In Lentz and Mortensen (2005), we formulate and estimate a market equilibrium model of endogenous growth through product innovation in the spirit of Klette and Kortum (2004). In this paper, we provide a quantitative solution to the social planner’s problem in the modeled environment. We find that the optimal growth rate is over three times larger than its value in market equilibrium and that th...