Thesiss

In 2016, every Chinese couple is allowed to have at most two children, which abolished the historical “one-child” policy. However, there are reports saying that the sex discrimination in labor market is getting worse due to second-child policy. This thesis uses data from China G…

My dissertation explores the demographics and composition of sexual minority populations in the United States, their labor market experiences, and public policy, respectively. Using a novel method of Cross-Survey Multiple Imputation (CSMI), I create a unique dataset which allows…

This dissertation combines three essays studying the relationship between fertility decisions and labor market inequality. The first chapter studies the effect of providing abortions for free on women's fertility decisions and career outcomes. The second chapter looks at the imp…

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have seen significant changes in human development indicators that suggest considerable improvement in people’s lives. As a result of development, the total fertility rate for the region has dropped, and access to secondary education has i…

The magnitude and diversity of recent Russian immigration to Israel provides an excellent opportunity to test key theories about immigration and the labor market. Cross-section analyses show that immigrant earnings tend to rise faster than those of natives, but this relation may…

Although the two essays included here focus on the economy of Lebanon, a country unique in the Middle East due to both its political and economic characteristics, the study is instructive even in the context of other developing economies. The first essay attempts to explain grow…

One of the practical issues involved in estimating the effects of changes in the US labor market is isolating the changes in the areas under study from broader changes in the economy. For this reason, one might be better able to isolate these effects with a case study where thes…

The political economy of Egypt and Mexico displayed striking similarities pre-reform, yet they have pursued divergent paths of labor market reform. The objective of this thesis is to explain this divergence in policy. This study contends that the differential strength of Egyptia…

Why have benefits to labor in Egypt remained constant after neoliberal economic reform began, whereas benefits to labor in Mexico have clearly decreased? Interestingly, the political economy of Egypt and Mexico displayed striking similarities pre-reform. Yet, despite the similar…

Both highly developed and developing countries share the common problem of how to maximize the health and welfare of their populations within a context of ever-tighter budgets for public health expenditures. In such situations, it becomes crucial for governments to identify effe…

This dissertation consists of two chapters. In the first chapter, I build a life-cycle directed search model to match salient features of the labor market and disability insurance: multiple states, expiring unemployment benefits, disability insurance, human capital depreciation,…

In Canada, the non-recognition of foreign credentials remains a considerable policy issue as well as a challenge for skilled immigrants. Many studies have shed light on the difficulties that foreign professionals face when seeking a placement in the Canadian job market. This the…

This dissertation combines research on three topics in development economics. The first paper estimates the long-term labor performance outcomes for a worker subjected to a negative labor market shock upon entry. The second paper, based on joint work with Alain de Janvry and Eli…

Higher education has been one of the prominent sectors in Afghanistan for the past decade. There has been a steady increase in the representation of women within the higher education system in the country. However, the growth of an educated workforce within the job market and th…

This dissertation entails three essays on the wage-unemployment relationship, more specifically the role of regional unemployment rates in wage determination. The analysis builds upon a series of recent empirical studies on the wage-unemployment relationship, now commonly known …

Essay 1. This essay examines the determinants of the demand for public job training programs in Illinois. My first objective is to determine which personal characteristics influence support for an increase in spending on publicly provided job training programs for the unemployed…

This document is composed by two chapters. The first chapter presents a simple model of statistical discrimination that nests two types of discriminatory equilibria where groups with equal productive potential get different average wages. One equilibrium is generated assuming th…

In this dissertation research, the empirical analyses are developed to investigate the role of different factors on female’s fertility decisions as well as female labor force participation. This research contains two major parts related to women: first, the impact of State Child…

First, we use new dataset on the capital cities of the WAEMU countries that combine information on the active population (15 years and more) and their activity to analyze the labor market in those countries. The descriptive analysis suggests that there is high labor force partic…

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) labor market consists largely of expatriates rather than nationals, the vast majority of which are employed in the private sector. On the other hand, nationals are mostly employed in the public sector and face growing unemployment pressures. This d…