In this paper we study the joint decision process of changing the structure of jobs and layingoff individual workers in a firm that downsizes its workforce. A hierarchical decision model isproposed and estimated using personnel data from a firm in demise comparing thecharacteristics of the...

We study compensation packages in family and non-family firms. Using matched employeremployeedata for a representative sample of French establishments, we first show thatfamily firms pay on average lower wages to their workers. We find that part of this wage gapis due to differences in...

What are the impacts of labor tax reform on wage setting and employment to keep therelative tax burden per low-skilled and high-skilled workers constant in the case ofheterogenous domestic labor markets, i.e. imperfect competition in low-skilled labor andperfect competition in high-skilled labor...

Using a longitudinal matched employer-employee data set for Portugal over the 1986-2005period, this study analyzes the heterogeneity in wages responses to aggregate labor marketconditions for newly hired workers and existing workers. Accounting for both worker and firmheterogeneity, the data...

The potentially adverse labor market effects of severance pay mandates are a continuingsource of policy concern. In a seminal study, Lazear (1990) found that contract avoidance ofseverance pay firing costs was theoretically simple – a bonding scheme would do – but thatempirically the labor...

A significant fraction of the labor force consists of employed workers who are part-timeunemployed (underemployed) in the sense that they are unable to work as much as theyprefer. This paper develops a search and matching model to study the design of optimalunemployment insurance in an economy...

Using a country-industry panel dataset (EUKLEMS) we uncover a robust empirical regularity,namely that high-risk innovative sectors are relatively smaller in countries with strictemployment protection legislation (EPL). To understand the mechanism, we develop a twosectormatching model where firms...

This study examines the determinants of job-finding rates of unemployment benefit recipientsunder the Chilean program. This is a unique, innovative program that combines socialinsurance through a solidarity fund (SF) with self-insurance in the form of unemploymentinsurance savings accounts...

We measure labor market frictions using a strategy that bridges design-based and structuralapproaches: estimating an equilibrium search model using reduced-form minimum wageelasticities identified from border discontinuities and fitted with Bayesian and LIML methods.We begin by providing the...

About one in four workers challenges her dismissal in front of a labor court in France. Using adata set of individual labor disputes brought to French courts over the years 1996 to 2003,we examine the impact of labor court activity on labor market flows. First, we present asimple theoretical...