We introduce search unemployment à la Pissarides into Melitz’ (2003) model of trade with heterogeneous firms. We allow wages to be individually or collectively bargained and analytically solve for the equilibrium. We find that the selection effect of trade influences labor market outcomes....

There is no robust empirical support for the effect of financial incentives on the decision towork in self-employment rather than as a wage earner. In the literature, this is seen as apuzzle. We offer a focus on the opportunity cost, i.e. the wages given up as an employee.Information on income...

While results are starting to emerge, not much is known yet about the dynamics of the labormarkets of the former Eastern economies, especially in the context of the current FinancialCrisis. Arguably, this is mainly due to paucity of (panel) data. By examining labor markettransitions, earnings...

Research on self-employment has increased during recent years and particular attention has been paid to self-employment dynamics and the factors influencing entry and exit rates from self-employment. Using a large panel data set for Sweden, this paper investigates variations in recruitment to...

This paper provides an introduction and overview of my research on the Economics of Language. The approach is that language skills among immigrants and native-born linguistic minorities are a form of human capital. There are costs and benefits associated with this characteristic embodied in the...

Using two Dutch labour force surveys, employment assimilation of immigrants is examined. We observe marked differences between immigrants by source country. Non-western immigrants never reach parity with native Dutch. Even second generation immigrants never fully catch up...

Identifying the effect of parental incomes on child outcomes is difficult due to the correlation of unobserved ability, education levels and income. Previous research has relied on the use of instrumental variables to identify the effect of a change in household income on the young adult...

In this paper we investigate two stages in the process that leads to participation in ALMP programs. We use unique administrative data from the Austrian unemployment registers which allow us to distinguish between caseworker assignment and actual program enrollment. Although 25% of newly...

Econometric evaluations of public-sponsored training programmes generally find littleevidence of an impact of such policies on transition rates out of unemployment. We performthe first evaluation of training effects for the unemployed adults in France, exploiting a uniquelongitudinal dataset...

This paper studies how portable skill accumulated in the labor market are. Using rich data ontasks performed in occupations, we propose the concept of task-specific human capital tomeasure the transferability of skills empirically. Our results on occupational mobility andwages show that labor...