It has been argued that the use of personal networks in the hiring process has a positive influence on the wages of referred individuals. However, the value of recommendations to the employer varies according to the type of vacancy to be filled and the provider of information on job applicants....

This paper analyses the factors that give rise to the existence of the informal economy and how it evolves over time.  Using an occupational-choice model the paper shows that at early stages of development, informal and formal markets coexist, but in the long-run the size of the informal...

The instability of the Beveridge curve in Britain since the mid-50s has been interpreted as revealing a deterioration of labour market effectiveness in matching vacancies to unemployed job-seekers. This paper attemps to repeat the stability analysis of the matching technology, having relaxed...

This paper is a preliminary draft of a chapter for the new Handbook of Labour Economics edited by Orley Ashenfelter and David Card and Published by North Holland.

Given the increasing use of panel data in testing hypotheses about labour market behaviour, it is essential that economists have a cound grasp of the problems involved in the collection of this type of data. This paper investigates the biases generated by recall errors and panel attrition, using...

In this paper, we first present a summary of the literature dealing with the question of the existence of externalities of employer provided and funded training. Using French data, we then estimate the impact of this kind of training on wages, while paying special attention to the mobility after...

We study the role of preferences in the process of unemployment benefit determination. Perhaps surprisingly, survey evidence for the UK suggests that both the employed and unemployed wish to see a more generous level of unemployment benefits.

We present a simple model where unemployment benefits are determined in an economy in which there is endogenous delay in finding a job so that workers desire insurance against the possibility of unemployment.