The evolution of economies during the major portion of human history was marked by Malthusian Stagnation. The transition from an epoch of stagnation to a state of sustained economic growth has shaped the contemporary world economy and has led to the Great Divergence in income per capita across the globe in the past two centuries. This entry examines the process of development over the course of...

This paper uses an independent competing risks framework to model job tenure, with previous labour market status and the duration of the preceding unemployment spell as explanatory variables. We find that jobs that follow an unemployment spell have shorter mean duration than other jobs. Less than one half of jobs that follow unemployment last for twelve months. Multivariate results suggest that...

Factors shaping international migration, over the last half century, from and into the countries and territories of Sub-Saharan and North Africa, as well as the economic and some social implications of those movements, are examined. Existing analyses of these issues are critically reviewed, including topics particularly pertinent to the African context and evidence on crosscutting themes studie...

We investigate the effects of human capital accumulation on trade and productivity by integrating a micro-founded education and fertility decision of households into a model of international trade with firm heterogeneity. Our theoretical framework leads to two testable implications: i) the export share of a country increases with the education level of its population, ii) the average profitabil...

The paper deals with Alternative Risk Transfer (ART) through securitization of longevity and mortality risks in pension plans and commercial life insurance. Various types of such mortality-linked securities are described including methods of their pricing and real examples (e.g. CATM bonds, longevity bonds, mortality forwards and futures, mortality swaps, and others). Hypothetical calculations ...

The Economic Determinants of Ethnic Assimilation Expanding on the concept of ethnic human capital, the paper distinguishes between cultural assimilation compatible with persistent ethnic groups and assimilation through intermarriage and other mechanisms that blur distinctions and lead to the disappearance of ethnic identities. Economic determinants of “successful” and “disadvantaged” group outc...

Hypergamy, Cross-Boundary Marriages, and Family Behavior We study the rise in marriages between residents of HK and China following the handover of HK to China in 1997. Cross-boundary marriages accounted for almost half the marriages registered in HK in 2006. Because of large differences in male income between China and HK, marriages of HK men with Mainland women outnumbered those of HK women w...

This paper analyzes qualitatively and quantitatively the effects of declining mortality rates on fertility, education and economic growth. The analysis demonstrates that if individuals are prudent in the face of uncertainty about child survival, a decline in an exogenous mortality rate reduces precautionary demand for children and increases parental investment in each child. Once mortality is e...

The paper examines social security (public pension) reforms in which the programme is partially shifted from a public unfunded basis to a private, prefunded, basis. It focuses on reforms where individuals have a choice in switching from public funded to private unfunded programmes (as in the ‘contracting out’ scheme in the UK), or where some individuals are forced to join the funded scheme, or ...