This article analyzes determinants of growth across labor markets in the United States, using a production function approach based on four inputs: labor, manufacturing investment, human capital investment, and public capital investment. We find little role for public capital investment in growth, but that manufacturing investment spurred growth in nonmetropolitan areas, in contrast to metropoli...

This paper analyzes optimal linear taxes on capital and labor incomes in a life-cycle model of human capital investment, financial savings, and labor supply with heterogenous individuals. A dual income tax with positive marginal tax rates on not only labor but also capital income is optimal. The key function of the tax on capital income is to reduce labor tax distortions on human capital accumu...

We analyze the implications of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Tanzania for labor markets and human capital accumulation. Three analyses are undertaken. First, we examine the 2000/01 Labor Force Survey and compare it with the 1990/91 Labor Force Survey. Since these two surveys encompass a period where accumulated AIDS deaths increased dramatically, their comparison provides an opportunity to make infe...

Mincerian econometric estimates including health (indicated by stature), schooling and experience show adult human capital has increasing returns in Mexico. These may result from recent pro-market reforms. In addition, probit estimates show that childhood nutrition and health (also indicated by stature), as well as parental education, have substantial and possibly increasing returns in the acqu...

In order to credibly "sell" legitimate children to their spouse, women must forego more attractive mating opportunities. This paper derives the implications of this observation for the pattern of matching in marriage markets, the dynamics of human capital accumulation, and the evolution of the gene pool. A key consequence of the trade-off faced by women is that marriage markets will naturally t...