This paper examines the impact of job search methods on the output of the job search process in a segmented labor market. Theoretical models of job search, like the widely used search approach, generally contain only one parameter capturing all possible factors affecting the efficiency of...

We develop a model where agents obtain information about job opportunities through an explicitly modeled network of social contacts. We show that an improvement in the employment status of either an agent's direct or indirect contacts leads to an increase in the agent's employment probability...

I study the consequences of heterogeneity of skills for the design of an optimal unemployment insurance, using a principal-agent set-up with a risk neutral insurer and infinitely lived risk averse agents. Agents, who are characterised by different productivities or skills, are employed by firms...

This paper presents an overview of the youth unemployment problem and youth employment policy principally from the European perspective although it is hoped that much of the coment and analysis is relevant for a much broader range of countries. Its intention is to raise issues rather than...

I estimate a life cycle model of consumption choice with unemployment risk. Employed individuals face the risk of losing their job. Unemployed agents receive job random offers of different quality, which they can accept or reject. Following the loss of a job and during unemployment, an agent’s...

We examine how much of the observed wage dispersion among similar workers can be explained as a consequence of a lack of coordination among employers. To do this, we construct a directed search model with homogenous workers but where firms can create either good or bad jobs, aimed at either...

This paper looks at youth labour market trends concentrating on developing and transition countries. Questions relating to the integration of young people into decent work have in recent times once again begun to occupy a central position in Government Policy issues. Recently co-ordinated...

In this paper a stochastic model is used to analyse the matching process between skills demand and supply in a segmented labor market. We find the steady state solution of the dynamic system and we address the issue of the necessary conditions for the existence of a steady state and for the...

This paper reviews economic studies on rural-urban migration issues in China. The paper focuses on four issues: the household registration system in China, the profile of the migrants, explanations for rural-to-urban migration, and the interaction between migration and labor market evolution,...

Recent empirical work on the effects of minimum wages has called into question the conventional wisdom that minimum wages invariably reduce employment. We develop a model of \emph{monopsonistic competition} with \emph{free entry} to analyze the effects of minimum wages, and our predictions fit...