We investigate the effect of social interactions on labor market outcomes using a direct measure of social contacts based on information about individuals' three best friends and their characteristics. We examine the effect of the number of employed friends on the transition from non-employment...

The objective of this paper is to construct and quantitatively assess an equilibrium search model with on-the-job search and general human capital accumulation. In the model workers enter the labour market with different abilities and firms differ in their productivities. Wages are dispersed...

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...

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 explore the determinants of the number of long-term bank relations of listed Japanese firms using a unique data set covering the period 1982-1999. Japanese listed firms have about seven long-term bank loan relations on average, but show a large variation around the average. We analyze the...