Differences in regional unemployment in post-communist economies are large andpersistent. We show that inherited variation in human-capital endowment across the regionsof four such economies explains the bulk of regional unemployment variation there and weexplore potential explanations for this...

State and federal reforms of the 1990s transformed the U.S. cash assistance program forsingle parents and their children. Despite an extensive literature examining these changesand their impacts, there have been few studies that consider the effects of these reformsfrom the perspective of the...

In this paper we empirically examine differences in search behavior between men andwomen. We assess hypotheses regarding duration of search, wages and tenure. Thehypotheses are derived from two models: the equilibrium search model with discriminatoryfirms by Black (1995) and an opportunity cost...

This paper tests a central implication of the theory of equalizing differences, that workers sortinto jobs with different attributes based on their preferences for those attributes. We presentevidence from four new time-use data sets for the United States and France on whetherworkers who are...

Despite the increased frequency of job loss for older workers in Europe, little is known on itseffect on the work-retirement decision. Employing individual data from the EuropeanCommunity Household Panel for Germany, Italy, Spain, and the U.K., a multivariatecompeting-risks hazard model is...

Many previous studies try to discover job preferences by directly asking individuals. Since itis not sure, whether answers to these surveys are relevant for actual behaviour, this empiricalexamination offers a new approach based on representative German data. Employees whoquit their job and find...

This paper examines changes in individual earnings during positive and negative growthperiods in three Latin American economies: Argentina, Mexico, and Venezuela. We askwhether those individuals who start in the best economic position are those who experiencethe largest earnings gains or the...

In this paper we use a very large matched database on firms and employees to analyze theuse of temporary agencies by low earners, and to estimate the impact of temp employmenton subsequent employment outcomes for these workers...

This paper investigates the effect of sanctions of unemployment insurance benefits on theexit rate from unemployment for a sample of Danish unemployed. According to the findingsare that even moderate sanctions have rather large effects...

This paper applies recent advances in the study of labor market dynamics to a representativedeveloping country with a large unregulated of “informal” sector. It confirms the relevance ofthe recent mainstream models and debates surrounding gross worker flows to the developingcountry context,...