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In this paper, we analyze the emergence and persistence of poverty traps and study how wide-spread poverty and the unequal distribution of income can slow down the accumulation process and lead to steady-state equilibria characterized by low aggregate output levels. We define poverty as a state deriving from the lack of adequate skills and associate income inequality with the unequal distribution of education attainments. In this context the goal of our contribution is twofold. First, we show that low asymptotic mobility and persistent income inequality can emerge as a consequence of the fact that the poor require relatively higher returns to increase expenditure on education, so that they devote to education smaller shares of their income that the rich. Second, we critically evaluate our and other related results, in order to shed light on the explanatory power of different sets of assumptions.

This paper studies the determinants of immigration policy in an economy with entrepreneurs and workers where a trade union has market power over wages. The presence of the union induces a social welfare maximizing government to implement a high level of immigration, leading to a welfare loss not only from an aggregate point of view but also from the workers' point of view. When interest group politics prevails and workers' ability to influence the policy‐maker is strengthened by existence of the union, we show the conditions under which workers may benefit from the presence of the union.

This paper studies the determinants of immigration policy in an economy with entrepreneurs and workers where a trade union has monopoly power over wages. The presence of the union leads a benevolent government to implement a high level of immigration and induces a welfare loss not only from an aggregate point of view, but even from the point of view of workers. In the politico-economic equilibrium where interest groups lobby for immigration, we show the condition under which workers are no longer hurt by the presence of the union.

This paper studies the determinants of immigration policy in an economy with entrepreneurs and workers where a trade union has monopoly power over wages. The presence of the union leads a benevolent government to implement a high level of immigration and induces a welfare loss not only from an aggregate point of view, but even from the point of view of workers. In the politico-economic equilibrium where interest groups lobby for immigration, we show the condition under which workers are no longer hurt by the presence of the union.

We study the interactions between technological innovation, investment in human capital and child labor. In our setting new technologies require new skills and new skills can be developed only through schooling. In a two-stage game, first firms decide on innovation, then households decide on education. In equilibrium the presence of inefficient child labor depends on parameters related to technology, parents' altruism and the diffusion of firm property. When child labor exists, it is due to either firms reluctance to innovate or households' unwillingness to educate or both. The optimal policy to eliminate child labor depends crucially on its underlying cause. We show that, in some cases, compulsory schooling laws or a ban on child labor are welfare reducing, while a subsidy to innovation is the right tool to eliminate child labor and increase welfare.

This paper investigates the economic consequences of international migration from the point of view of destination countries. Consistently with international evidence on migration flows, we build a model where the migration rate is higher among the highlyeducated. A negative relationship is shown to exist between the domestic wage level and the percentage of educated workers among immigrants, which raises interesting policy implications. In particular, the optimal immigration policy from the point of view of natives requires an immigration quota above a certain minimum level. Extending the analysis to a dynamic setting, we highlight additional effects of the immigration quota on human capital accumulation among natives.

Equally, poor countries display similar compulsory schooling laws but different levels of child labor and school attendance. This paper provides an explanation for the existence of child labor, which relies on the imperfect enforcement of compulsory schooling laws and is consistent with the above cross-country differences. In the presence of complementarities in the production of human capital that justify legislative intervention, mandatory measures ensure that coordination failures are solved so that all parents send their children to school and the socially optimal equilibrium is reached. However, if enforcement of legislation is too low, multiple equilibria emerge. In this case, child labor occurs more often among poor households, and compulsory schooling laws may have adverse welfare effects.

Equally, poor countries display similar compulsory schooling laws but different levels of child labor and school attendance. This paper provides an explanation for the existence of child labor, which relies on the imperfect enforcement of compulsory schooling laws and is consistent with the above cross-country differences. In the presence of complementarities in the production of human capital that justify legislative intervention, mandatory measures ensure that coordination failures are solved so that all parents send their children to school and the socially optimal equilibrium is reached. However, if enforcement of legislation is too low, multiple equilibria emerge. In this case, child labor occurs more often among poor households, and compulsory schooling laws may have adverse welfare effects.

This paper proposes an explanation for why universal suffrage has not implied larger rich-to-poor transfers of wealth. The main argument is that, in the presence of borrowing constraints, if current taxation finances (at least partially) policies that redistribute future income, the poor, who are more likely to be liquidity constrained, may form a coalition with the rich and vote for low redistribution. In this context, the effects of an increase in income inequality is concentrated among the poor or the middle class. In the former case, an increase in inequality tends to decrease redistribution, whereas, in the latter case, it tends to increase redistribution.

In this paper we develop an endogenous growth model of open economies, where countries differ with respect to the quality of property rights. Within this context, we analyze two types of reforms. First, we look at growth and welfare effects of removing capital controls, given the degree of property rights protection. Second, we endogenize the quality of property rights and study the political support for a reform aimed at improving it. We show that, in countries where property rights are poorly protected, the liberalization of capital movements, that may or may not foster economic growth in the short-run, eliminates the possibility of sustained physical capital accumulation. Nevertheless, the removal of capital controls may benefit the agents alive at the time of liberalization, leaving a burden for future generations. Ceteris paribus, the political support for a reform of property rights will be stronger in the closed economy than in the open economy.

In this paper, we show that the positive estimated coefficient of average social security expenditure, often detected in cross-country growt regression, can not be imputed to reverse causation, that is on economic growth pulling social security expenditure, nor to omitted variables or other misspecification problems. Morover, we show that the positive effect of social security expenditure on growth is much stronger in poor countries than in rich countries. As for the channel through which the positive effect of social security expenditure on growth takes place, our results point out that the social security influences human capital formation. On the other hand, we do not find support for theories claiming that generous social security benefits should enhance investment productivity and growth by inducing retirement of unproductive workers or by improving political stability and social cohesion.

In this paper we develop an endogenous growth model of open economies, where countries differ with respect to the quality of property rights. Within this context, we analyze two types of reforms. First, we look at growth and welfare effects of removing capital controls, given the degree of property rights protection. Second, we endogenize the quality of property rights and study the political support for a reform aimed at improving it. We show that, in countries where property rights are poorly protected, the liberalization of capital movements, that may or may not foster economic growth in the short-run, eliminates the possibility of sustained physical capital accumulation. Nevertheless, the removal of capital controls may benefit the agents alive at the time of liberalization, leaving a burden for future generations. Ceteris paribus, the political support for a reform of property rights will be stronger in the closed economy than in the open economy.

In this paper, we show that the positive estimated coefficient of average social security expenditure, often detected in cross-country growt regression, can not be imputed to reverse causation, that is on economic growth pulling social security expenditure, nor to omitted variables or other misspecification problems. Morover, we show that the positive effect of social security expenditure on growth is much stronger in poor countries than in rich countries. As for the channel through which the positive effect of social security expenditure on growth takes place, our results point out that the social security influences human capital formation. On the other hand, we do not find support for theories claiming that generous social security benefits should enhance investment productivity and growth by inducing retirement of unproductive workers or by improving political stability and social cohesion.

This paper develops a model of endogenous growth with overlapping generations to investigate the joint determination of social security, public investment and growth in a small open economy. We argue that a pure pay-as-you-go system provides the taxpayers with the incentives to support growth-oriented policies, which increase the future productivity of labor. We find that outcomes characterized by positive levels of intergenerational redistribution, public investment and long run growth can be sustained as subgame-perfect Nash equilibria of an infinitely repeated intergenerational game, if and only if the marginal productivity of public capital is large enough. Furthermore, we show that transfers either comove with public investment and growth or display a non-monotonic relation, where they initially increase along with public investment and growth and then decrease.