It is argued that migration from Mexico to the US and its corresponding return migration aredetermined by international wage differentials and preferences for origin. We use a model ofjob search, savings and migration to show that job turnover is a crucial determinant of themigration process...

Using a matched firm-worker dataset, we show both theoretically and empirically that positiveassortative matching between firms...

To assess the employment effects of labor costs it is crucial to have reliable estimates of thelabor cost elasticity of labor demand. Using a matched firm-worker dataset, we estimate along run unconditional labor demand function, exploiting information on workers to correct forendogeneity in the...

This paper measures the contribution of knowing Catalan to finding a job in Catalonia. In the early eighties a drastic language policy change (normalització) promoted the learning and use of Catalan and managed to reverse the falling trend of its relative use versus Castilian (Spanish), thereby...

This paper inquires on the effect of initial wealth in racial differences in early employment careers. I set up a dynamic model in which people simultaneously search for a job and accumulate wealth, and fit it to data from the National Longitudinal Survey (1979-cohort). With the recovered...

We develop and estimate a model of family job search and wealth accumulation. Individuals' job finding and job separations depend on their partners' job turnover and wages as well as common wealth. We fit this model to data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). This dataset...

In this paper, we investigate to what extent shocks in housing and financial markets account for wage and employment variations in a frictional labor market. To explain these interactions, we use a model of job search with accumulation of wealth as liquid funds and residential real estate, in...

In this paper we analyze a mechanism that is particularly relevant to the workings of the Great Recession: we explain how easier home financing and higher homeownership rates increase unemployment rates. To this purpose we build a model of job search with liquid wealth accumulation and...

This paper evaluates the determinants of school attendance and work of rural adolescents between 10 and 18 years old in 1997-1998 for a sample of Latin American countries. Rural adolescents are quite disadvantaged relative to their urban counterparts. The share of rural adolescents studying...

Using survey data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we document descriptively that unemployment has a relatively large effect on individual mortgage default rates: The average default rate for the employed is 2.4%; whereas for the unemployed, it is 8.5%. Once several other characteristics...