The internal labor marketsof business groups

This paper provides micro evidence of labor mobility inside business groups. We show that worker flows between firms in the same group are stronger than with unaffiliated firms. More over, the reallocation of top workers between group firms is more sensitive to international shocks. Top workers that move within the group in response to shocks […]

Price elasticity of demandfor voluntary health insurance plans in Colombia

Background: Since 1993, Colombia has had a mandatory social health insurance scheme that aims to provide universal health coverage to all citizens. However, some contributory regime participants purchase voluntary private health insurance (VPHI) to access better quality health services (i. e., physicians and hospitals), shorter waiting times, and a more extensive providers’ network. This article […]

Human capital, innovationand productivity in Colombian enterprises: astructural approach usinginstrumental variables

In this paper we explore the R&D–innovation–productivity linkage for the Colombian manufacturing industry, paying special attention to the role of human capital. Using data from two firm-level surveys, the Survey of Development and Technological Innovation (EDIT) and the Annual Manufacturing Survey (EAM), we extend the model of Crépon, Duguet, and Mairesse [1998. ‘Research, Innovation and […]

Bounded learning by doing,inequality, and multi-sectorgrowth: A middle-class perspective.

This paper develops a multi-sector model of middle-class-led economic growth, whereby (i) learning by doing interacts with scale economies and nonhomothetic preferences giving rise to endogenous growth, and (ii) the “middle class” label is an endogenous outcome of the model, depending on past economic growth. The emphasis is placed on the entire income distribution, which […]

Crime and education in a model of information transmission

We model the decisions of young individuals to stay in school or drop out and engage in criminal activities. We build on the literature on human capital and crime engagement and use the framework of Banerjee (1993) that assumes that the information needed to engage in crime arrives in the form of a rumour and […]

The daily grind: Cash needs and labor supply

The majority of people in developing countries are self-employed and can therefore set their own work hours. How do self-employed individuals motivate themselves to work hard day after day? We document four facts about the labor supply of Kenyan bicycle-taxi drivers: (1) drivers work more on days with higher cash needs; and (2) the quitting […]

The gradient allocation principle based on the higher moment risk measure

According to the gradient allocation principle based on a positively homogeneous and subadditive risk measure, the capital allocated to a sub-portfolio is the Gâteaux derivative, assuming it exists, of the underlying risk measure at the overall portfolio in the direction of the sub-portfolio. We consider the capital allocation problem based on the higher moment risk […]