Macroeconomic Effects of Short-Term Training Measures on the Matching Process in Western Germany This paper investigates the macroeconomic effects of short term training measures on the matching processes in West Germany. The empirical analysis is based on regional data for local employment office districts for the period from January 2003 to December 2004. The empirical model relies on a dynam...

This paper investigates the effect of parents’ current income and long-term family characteristics on individuals’ highest educational qualification obtained by age 26 using UK data from the 1970 British Cohort Study. The issues of the possible sample selection bias produced by the not completely random omission of current family income and that of its potential endogeneity are addressed, using...

Job Search with Bidder Memories This paper revisits the no-recall assumption in job search models with take-it-or-leave-it offers. Workers who can recall previously encountered potential employers in order to engage them in Bertrand bidding have a distinct advantage over workers without such attachments. Firms account for this difference when hiring a worker. When a worker first meets a firm, t...

Investing in Our Young People This paper reviews the recent literature on the production of skills of young persons. The literature features the multiplicity of skills that explain success in a variety of life outcomes. Noncognitive skills play a fundamental role in successful lives. The dynamics of skill formation reveal the interplay of cognitive and noncognitive skills, and the presence of c...

We reevaluate the role of human capital in determining the wealth of nations. We use standard human capital theory to estimate stocks of human capital and allow the quality of human capital to vary across countries. Our model can explain differences in schooling and earnings profiles and, consequently, estimates of Mincerian rates of return across countries. We find that effective human capital...

The theory of linguistic relativity—the idea that our language influences our thinking— has a long history in the humanities. Speakers of different languages may systematically think and behave differently. This phenomenon has only recently attracted attention from economists. This paper provides the first comprehensive review of this nascent literature. First we explain the linguistic relativi...

We document a set of time use patterns in both time series and cross sections. To explain these facts, we propose and estimate a model of time allocation that emphasizes the role of home production technology. We find it necessary to consider both labor-augmenting technology and total factor productivity in home production. Based on the estimated model, we study the effects of proportional tax ...

Does the lack of peers contribute to the observed gender gap in entrepreneurial success? A random sample of customers of India’s largest women’s bank was offered two days of business counseling, and a random subsample was invited to attend with a friend. The intervention significantly increased participants’ business activity, but only if they were trained with a friend. Those trained with a fr...