Based on a survey of graduating PhD students in the U.S., we study the determinants of location of their first jobs. We consider how locating in Canada versus the U.S. for all graduates is influenced by both their background and time-varying factors that affect international mobility. We also...

This paper examines how changes in immigration policy levers actually affect the skill characteristics of immigrant arrivals using a unique Canadian immigrant landings database. We first review the Canadian experience with a point system as part of its immigrant policy. Section III of the paper...

This paper demonstrates that factors which impede labour market adjustments can have first-order impacts on aggregate output and social welfare. While several studies find that individual workers can face large and persistent sectoral reallocation costs, this paper shows that these costs are...

This paper makes three contributions to the literature on program evaluation. First, we construct a model that is well-suited to conduct equilibrium policy experiments and we illustrate effectiveness of general equilibrium models as tools for the evaluation of social programs. Second, we...

This paper develops an equilibrium search and matching model to jointly study the aggregate, sectoral, and distributional impacts of labour adjustment. The model extends Pissarides (2000) to include multisector production and search and "innovation" from investments that can potentially improve...

This paper introduces an innovative test of search and matching models using the exogenous variation available in experimental data. We take an off-the-shelf Pissarides matching model and calibrate it to data on the control group from a randomized social experiment. We then simulate a program...

Regions inhabited with an immobile population of disabled and able individuals compete to attract mobile firms that provide jobs. The redistributive goal of regional governments is to support the disabled, who cannot work. Able individuals may work, be involuntary unemployed because of frictions...

In this paper we provide new and convincing evidence on the presence and magnitude of feedback effects associated with 'make work pay' policies currently under consideration in the US, Canada, the UK and other developed countries. We build a general equilibrium model of the labor market and use...

This paper models the Self-Sufficiency Project (SSP), a controlled randomized experiment concerning welfare. The model of household behavior includes stochastic labor market skill, job opportunities, and value of non-labor market time. All the variation within and between treatment groups,...

I study the optimal redistributive structure when individuals with distinct productivities also differ in disutility of work due to either disability or distaste for work. Taxpayers have resentment against inactive benefit recipients because some of them are not actually disabled but lazy....