This paper studies unemployed workers’ decisions to change occupations, and their impact on fluctuations in aggregate unemployment and its underlying duration distribution. We develop an analytically and computationally tractable stochastic equilibrium model with heterogenous labor markets. In...

We consider a model of on-the-job search where firms offer long-term wage contracts to workers of different ability. Firms do not observe worker ability upon hiring but learn it gradually over time. With sufficiently strong information frictions, low-wage firms offer separating contracts and...

We construct a simple equilibrium search model in which workers accumulate information about previously met employment contacts. We term the latter search capital. Here search capital (partially) insures workers against adverse shocks. The model provides a theory of job-to-job transitions that...

The objective of this paper is to construct and quantitatively assess an equilibrium search model with on-the-job search and general human capital accumulation. In the model workers enter the labour market with different abilities and firms differ in their productivities. Wages are dispersed...

This paper revisits the no-recall assumption in job search models with take-it-or-leave-it offers. Workers who can recall previously encountered potential employers, in order to engage them in Bertrand bidding, have a distinct advantage over workers without such attachments. Firms account for...

In this paper we ague that any meaningful bibliometric evaluation of researchers needs to take into account that research productivity follows distinct life cycles. Using an encompassing data set portraying the research behavior of German academic economists, we first show that research...

We analyze how an artist’s death influences the market prices of her works of art. Death has two opposing effects on art prices. By irrevocably restricting the artist’s oeuvre, prices, ceteris paribus, increase when the artist dies. On the other hand, an untimely death may well frustrate the...

For the first time it has been made possible to merge a German and a Swiss firm-level data set that include detailed information about costs and benefits of apprenticeship training. Previous analyzes based only on aggregate data showed that the net costs of training apprentices are substantial...

This paper presents the results of a randomized experiment analyzing the use of vouchers for adult training. In 2006, 2,400 people were issued with a training voucher which they were entitled to use in payment for a training course of their choice. User behavior was compared with a control group...

We examine the research productivity of German academic economists over their life cycles. It turns out that the career-patterns of research productivity as measured by journal publications are characterized by marked cohort effects. Moreover, the life-cycles of younger German economists are...