We measure the effects of firm policies on racial pay differences in Brazil. Non-Whites are less likely to be hired by high-wage firms, explaining about 20 percent wage gap for both genders. Firm-specific premiums non-Whites also compressed relative Whites, contributing another 5 that gap. A counterfactual analysis reveals two-thirds underrepresentation at higher-wage firms is explained race-ne...

This paper examines the long-run effects of 1980–1982 recession on education and income. Using confidential census data, I estimate difference-in-difference regressions that exploit variation across counties in severity cohorts age at time recession. For individuals 0–10 1979, a 10 percent decrease earnings per capita their county birth reduces four-year college degree attainment by 15 adulthoo...

En este estudio se verifica en qué medida las muertes y la oferta laboral inciden generación de capital humano el depar-tamento Bolívar durante periodo 2002 – 2009, para lo cual empleó información recolectada por DANE Ministerio Educación Nacional. Inicialmente realiza caracterización análisis variables luego desarrolla un ejercicio eco-nométrico utilizando método efectos fijos con corrección h...

Abstract An agent can perform a job in several ways, which we call tasks. Choosing agents’ tasks is the prerogative of management within firms, and agents themselves if they are entrepreneurs. While comparative advantage at different unknown, it be learned by observing their performance. However, that generate more information could lead to lower short-term profits. Hence, firms will allocate w...

The Technology of Skill Formation This paper develops a model of skill formation that explains a variety of findings established in the child development and child intervention literatures. At its core is a technology that is stage-specific and that features self productivity, dynamic complementarity and skill multipliers. Lessons are drawn for the design of new policies to alleviate the conseq...

This study presents credible estimates for the causal eff ect of a variation in obesity on employment. By exploring random assignment of a weight loss intervention based on monetary rewards, I provide convincing evidence that weight loss positively aff ects the employment prospects of obese women but not of obese men. Consistent with this, signifi cant eff ects of weight loss on proxy variables...

We study an overlapping generations model of human capital accumulation with threshold effects using regional data for West Germany. Our basic goal is to shed light on what makes German regions grow. The paper finds that the relative income distribution appears to be stratifying into a trimodal distribution. Thus, application of the threshold model to a real world case, here West Germany, shows...

We consider a Rebelo (1991) type model of endogenous growth in which the environmental quality positively affects the rate of human capital accumulation and the environmental quality itself is positively affected by human capital accumulation and is negatively affected by physical capital accumulation. We analyse the effects of taxation on the steady state equilibrium growth rate in this model....

Dynamic Contracts and Learning by Doing This paper studies the design of optimal contracts in dynamic environments where agents learn by doing. We derive a condition under which contracts are fully incentive compatible. A closed-form solution is obtained when agents have CARA utility. It shows that human capital accumulation strengthens the power of incentives and allows the principal to provid...

This paper examines whether the average level of human capital in a region affects the earnings of an individual residing in that region in a manner that is external to the individual’s own human capital. I find little evidence of an external effect of human capital, which suggests that human capital spillovers of the form postulated by the new growth literature are unlikely to matter much in p...