We show how small initial wealth differences between low skilled black and white workers can generate large differences in their labor-market outcomes. This even occurs in the absence of a taste for discrimination against blacks or exogenous differences in the distance to jobs. Because of the...

We use a repeated large-scale survey of households in the Nielsen Homescan panel to characterize how labor markets are being affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. We document several facts. First, job loss has been significantly larger than implied by new unemployment claims: we estimate 20 million...

We propose a novel selectivity correction procedure to deal with survey attrition, at the crossroads of the "Heckit" and of the bounding approach of Lee (2009). As a substitute for the instrument needed in sample selectivity correction models, we use information on the number of attempts that...

Helping job seekers to identify suitable jobs is a key challenge for policy makers. We develop and evaluate experimentally a novel tool that provides tailored advice at low cost and thereby redesigns the process through which job seekers search for jobs. We invited 300 job seekers to our...

This paper studies ethnic discrimination in Germany's labour market with a correspondence test. To each of 528 advertisements for student internships we send two similar applications, one with a Turkish-sounding and one with a German-sounding name. A German name raises the average probability of...

The randomized trial literature has helped to renew the fields of microeconometric policy evaluation by emphasizing identification issues raised by endogenous program participation. Measurement and attrition issues have perhaps received less attention. This paper analyzes the dramatic impact of...

We study how job seekers respond to wage announcements by assigning wages randomly to pairs of otherwise similar vacancies in a large number of professions. High wage vacancies attract more interest, in contrast with much of the evidence based on observational data. Some applicants only show...

We conduct a large-scale field experiment in the German labor market to investigate how information provision affects job seekers' employment prospects and labor market outcomes. Individuals assigned to the treatment group of our experiment received a brochure that informed them about job search...

We conduct a large-scale field experiment in the German labor market to investigate how information provision affects job seekers' employment prospects and labor market outcomes. Individuals assigned to the treatment group of our experiment received a brochure that informed them about job search...

We develop and evaluate experimentally a novel tool that redesigns the job search process by providing tailored advice at low cost. We invited job seekers to our computer facilities for 12 consecutive weekly sessions to search for real jobs on our web interface. For half, instead of relying on...