This paper models a frictional labor market where employers endogenously discriminate against the long term unemployed. The estimated model replicates recent experimental evidence which documents that interview invitations for observationally equivalent workers fall sharply as unemployment...

Much of the current discussion promoting apprenticeship programs in the U.S. proceeds as if it is simply a matter of historical accident or lack of imagination which has hindered human capital investment by U.S. firms. However, the cause may be rooted more deeply in our labor market...

In the centuries leading up to the Industrial Revolution, Western Europe gradually pulled ahead of other world regions in terms of technological creativity, population growth, and income per capita. We argue that superior institutions for the creation and dissemination of productive knowledge...

In the standard model of human capital with perfect labor markets general training. When labor market frictions compress the structure of wages in the general skills of their employees. The reason is that the distortion in the wage structure" turn technologically' general skills into specific'...

This paper offers and tests a theory of training whereby workers do not pay for general training they receive. The crucial ingredient in our model is that the current employer has superior information about the worker's ability relative to other firms. This informational advantage gives the...