Child Labor, Idiosyncratic Shocks, and Social Policy

In this paper, we measure the welfare effects of banning child labor in an economy with strong idiosyncratic shocks to employment. We then design two different policies: an unemployment insurance program and a universal basic income system. We show that they can often lead to an endogenous elimination of child labor. We work within a dynamic, general equilibrium model calibrated to South Africa in the 1990s.Child labor, Idiosyncratic shocks, Unemployment insurance, Universal basic income, Heterogeneous agents, Child labor ban

Education, Poverty and Child Labour

The purpose of the paper is to investigate the effects of poverty and educational policies on school attendance, child labour and growth. We consider an OLG model, with parental educational choices. It is assumed there is a trade off between child labour and human capital accumulation. If parents don't choose for quality of education, it is shown that a poverty trap may occur in the presence of a consumption subsistence or when the quality of education is inadequate. A private education system, where schooling quality is endogeneized can improve growth and reduce child labour, and cycles may occur. A public education system does not generate cycles, but it can generate more easely a poverty trap. In this case, only subsidies would help to reduce poverty and, consequently, child laboueducation, child labour, consumption subsistence, growth, educational policies

Child Labor, Idiosyncratic Shocks, and Social Policy

In this paper, we provide a dynamic model with heterogeneous agents to study child labor in an economy with idiosyncratic shocks to employment. Households facing adverse shocks may use child labor as a buffer to smooth consumption. We show that the introduction of an unemployment insurance program and/or a universal basic income system help eliminate child labor endogenously in this context. A calibration to South Africa in the 1990s is provided

Scholars and Literati at the Royal Bourbon College in Aix-en-Provence (1603–1763)

This note is a summary description of the set of scholars and literati who taught at the Royal Bourbon College in Aix-en-Provence (France) from its inception in 1603 to its disappearance, when Jesuits were expelled from Aix-en-Provence, and the College was absorbed into the old University of Aix in 1763

Scholars and Literati at the University of Toulouse (1229–1793)

This note summarizes our research into the group of scholars and literati who were at the University of Toulouse between its foundation in 1229 and its dissolution in 1793

Scholars and Literati at the University of Aix (1409–1793)

This note is a summary description of the set of scholars and literati who taught at the University of Aix (France) from its inception in 1409 to its abolishment during the French Revolution in 1793. &nbsp

Formation spécifique ou générale ? Implications en terme de croissance

L’étude porte sur l’impact de la nature d’une formation continue sur la croissance. Nous considérons un modèle à générations imbriquées, au sein duquel les agents vivent deux périodes. En première période de vie, ils s’éduquent au sein d’un système scolaire, puis en seconde période, ils ont la possibilité de suivre une formation continue alors qu’ils sont entrés dans la vie active. Nous montrons que le fait de pouvoir se former aussi en seconde période de vie influence les comportements d’éducation et affecte positivement l’équilibre de long terme. L’impact dynamique de la formation continue doit cependant être nuancé selon que la formation est spécifique ou générale, une formation générale apparaissant comme plus favorable à la croissance.The purpose of the paper is to study the accumulation of human capital on the life-cycle in an OLG framework. The agents are supposed to live for two periods : in the first they are going to school, and, in the second, they work and can be trained through on-the-job training. We point out that, according to the preferences of the agents, education and on-the-job training are complement or substitute. The nature of on-the-job training acts on the intertemporal equilibrium, and we show that general training is more benefit for growth that specific training

Child Labor, Idiosyncratic Shocks, and Social Policy

In this paper, we measure the welfare effects of banning child labor in an economy with strong idiosyncratic shocks to employment. We then design two different policies: an unemployment insurance program and a universal basic income system. We show that they can often lead to an endogenous elimination of child labor. We work within a dynamic, general equilibrium model calibrated to South Africa in the 1990s

Are Scholars’ Wages Correlated with their Human Capital?

Throughout our project on premodern academia, we use a heuristic human capital index to measure each scholar’s quality. This index is built by combining several statistics from individual Wikipedia and Worldcat pages. The question we address here is whether this measure is correlated with the actual wages professors received. This note is a technical appendix to our paper on the academic market (De la Croix et al. 2020) but also has an interest as a stand-alone publication. There is considerable evidence that compensations for academic contractswentwell beyond paid salaries.1 They included payments from students, prebends,2 and many forms of in-kind benefits. Yet, it is interesting to examine the relationship between scholars’ human capital and existing data on monetary remunerations. Such remunerations have been used by Dittmar (2019) to show that professor salaries increased significantly relative to skilled wages after printing spread, with science professors benefiting from the largest salary increases. In the two sections below, we first review the available data on salaries, and argue that such data are imperfect proxies for the overall remuneration for academic services (i.e. a scholar’s market value). Keeping in mind such limitations, we thendocument a positive correlation between monetary income and scholars’ human capital.&nbsp

The Academic Market and the Rise of Universities in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (1000-1800)

We argue that market forces shaped the geographic distribution of upper-tail human capital across Europe during the Middle Ages, and contributed to bolstering universities at the dawn of the Humanistic and Scientific Revolutions. We build a unique database of thousands of scholars from university sources covering all of Europe, construct an index of their ability, and map the academic market in the medieval and early modern periods. We show that scholars tended to concentrate in the best universities (agglomeration), that better scholars were more sensitive to the quality of the university (positive sorting) and migrated over greater distances (positive selection). Agglomeration, selection and sorting patterns testify to an integrated academic market, made possible by the use of a common language (Latin)