It is well known in personnel economics that firms may improve the quality of their workforce by offering performance pay. We analyse an equilibrium model where worker productivity is private information and show that the gains to the firms from worker self-selection may not be matched by a...

This paper examines competitive search equilibrium when workers' effort choice and 'type' are private information. We derive a modified Hosios Rule determining the allocation of resources, and analyze how private information influences the responsiveness of the unemployment rate to changes in...

Identification of the strength of human capital externalities at the aggregate level is still not fully understood. The existing method may yield positive or negative externalities even if wages reflect marginal social products. We propose an approach that yields positive average human capital...

We study a labour market in which firms can observe workers’ output but not their effort, and in which a worker’s productivity in a given firm depends on a worker-firm specific component, unobservable for the firm. Firms offer wage contracts that optimally trade off effort and wage costs. As...

We combine growth theory with US Census data on individual schooling and wages to estimate the aggregate return to human capital and human capital externalities in cities. Our estimates imply that a one year increase in average schooling in cities increases their aggregate labour productivity by...