Many countries have policies aimed at creating jobs in depressed areas with high unemployment rates. In standard spatial equilibrium models with perfectly competitive labor and land markets, local job creation efforts are distortionary. We develop a stylized model of frictional local labor...

We develop a framework to understand pre-employment credit screening through adverse selection in labor and credit markets. Workers differ in an unobservable characteristic that induces a positive correlation between labor productivity and repayment rates in credit markets. Firms therefore...

This paper analyzes the impact of labor market competition and skill-biased technical change on the structure of compensation. The model combines multitasking and screening, embedded into a Hotelling-like framework. Competition for the most talented workers leads to an escalating reliance on...

This paper studies the role of employer behavior in generating "negative duration dependence" -- the adverse effect of a longer unemployment spell -- by sending fictitious resumes to real job postings in 100 U.S. cities. Our results indicate that the likelihood of receiving a callback for an...

We use novel data from a leading online job search platform to examine the impact of corporate distress on firms' ability to attract job applicants. Survey responses suggest that job seekers accurately perceive firms' financial condition, as measured by companies' credit default swap prices and...

We study firms' advertised gender preferences in a population of ads on a Chinese internet job board, and interpret these patterns using a simple employer search model. The model allows us to distinguish firms' underlying gender preferences from firms' propensities to restrict their search to...

Financial market imperfections can have significant impact on employment decisions of firms. We illustrate the economic importance of this channel by demonstrating that the responsiveness of employment decisions to firms' financial health is quantitatively similar to the much-studied...

We present and experimentally test a mechanism that provides a simple, natural, low cost, and realistic solution to the problem of compliance with socially determined efficient actions, such as contributing to a public good. We note that small self-governing organizations often place enforcement...

Consider a labor market in which firms want to insure existing employees against income fluctuations and, simultaneously, want to recruit new employees to fill vacant jobs. Firms can commit to a wage policy, i.e. a policy that specifies the wage paid to their employees as a function of tenure,...