In a reasonably calibrated Mortensen and Pissarides matching model, shocks to average labor productivity can account for a small portion of the fluctuations in unemployment and vacancies (Shimer (2005)). I add heterogeneity in jobs (matches) with respect to the time the job is created in the...

In this paper I explore optimal employment contract design in a random search framework, where workers search on and off the job for employment opportunities similar to that of Lentz (2010) and Bagger and Lentz (2013). The worker determines the frequency by which employment opportunities arrive...

We develop a framework where mismatch between vacancies and job seekers across sectors translates into higher unemployment by lowering the aggregate job-finding rate. We use this framework to measure the contribution of mismatch to the recent rise in U.S. unemployment by exploiting two sources...

Within a search and matching model with risk-averse workers, endogenous hiring and separation, and unobservable search effort, we show how to decentralize the constrained-efficient allocation by a combination of a production tax and three labor-market policy instruments: vacancy subsidies,...

Job losses during the Great Recession were concentrated among middle-skill workers, the same group that over the long run has suffered the most from automation and international trade. How might long-run occupational polarization be related to cyclical changes in middle-skill employment? We find...

As part of a more general process of employment reallocation from less to more productive employers, jobto- job flows tend to be beneficial for productivity and for workers. Thus, when this rate slows, it is important to understand why. In the US, for example, the job-to-job flow rate is now at...

We develop an equilibrium model of on-the-job search with ex-ante heterogeneous workers and firms, aggregate uncertainty and vacancy creation. The model produces rich dynamics in which the distributions of unemployed workers, vacancies and worker-firm matches evolve stochastically over time. We...

A search and matching model, when calibrated to the mean and volatility of unemployment in the postwar sample, can potentially explain the unemployment crisis in the Great Depression. The limited responses of wages from credible bargaining to labor market conditions, along with the congestion...

We develop a life-cycle model of the labor market in which different worker-firm matches have different quality and the assignment of the right workers to the right firms is time consuming because of search and learning frictions. The rate at which workers move between unemployment, employment...