Many countries use centralized exit exams as a governance devise of the school system. While abundant evidence suggests positive effects of central exams on achievement tests, previous research on university-bound students shows no effects on subsequent earnings. We suggest that labor-market...

The use of social contacts in the labor market is widespread. This paper investigates the impact of personal connections on hiring probabilities and re-employment outcomes of displaced workers in Portugal. We rely on rich matched employer-employee data to define personal connections that arise...

We provide an overview of the integration of refugees into the labor markets of a number of high-income countries. Discussing the ways in which refugees and economic migrants are differently selected and so might be expected to perform differently in a host country's labor market, we examine...

For-profit providers are becoming an increasingly important fixture of US higher education markets. Students who attend for-profit institutions take on more educational debt, have worse labor market outcomes, and are more likely to default than students attending similarly-selective public...

We conducted a field experiment to evaluate the impact of job-search assistance on the employment of recently arrived refugees in Germany. The treatment group received job-matching support: an NGO identified suitable vacancies and sent the refugees' CVs to employers. Results of follow-up phone...

Refugees hosted across the developed world often work in low-quality jobs, regardless of education previously attained in their country of origin. In this paper, I analyse the long-term value of formal host-country education for refugees using the example of forcefully displaced Bosnians who...

In July 2004, the Belgian government intensified monitoring within the Unemployment Insurance scheme. Workers claiming unemployment benefits for more than 13 months are notified that past job-search behavior will be monitored 8 months later. In one region the target group is counselled shortly...

This paper investigates regional or international transfers as a means to prevent immigration into unemployment. We analyze a two-country model with free migration in which the rich country is characterized by minimum wage unemployment. Matching grants for investment in infrastructure are...

Although search-matching theory has come to dominate labor economics in recent years, few attempts have been made to compare the empirical relevance of search-matching theory to efficiency wage and bargaining theories, where employment is determined by labor demand. In this paper we formulate an...

We study the various consequences of and the incentives for outsourcing. We argue that the wage elasticity of labour demand increases as a function of the share of outsourcing, which is a result consistent with existing empirical research. Furthermore, we show that a production mode with a...