Empirical studies on the labor market and on consumer demand

The thesis covers three topics on the labour market and on consumer demand. Chapters two and three focus on the labour market mobility and wage differentials between the formal sector and the informal sector in urban Mexico. Dynamic random effects panel data models are used in the analysis. Chapters four and five deal with female labour supply in Mexico and the Netherlands using a discretised structural labour supply model. While chapter four is devoted more to the empirical analysis, chapter five is more methodologically oriented and explores the nonparametric aspects of the model. Chapter six investigates household consumption and sexual bias between boys and girls in rural China by analysing Engel Curves for several commodities. In chapter six, a semiparametric approach is adopted.