This paper analyzes effects of population aging on the labor market and determines their broad implications for public policy. It takes Germany as an example, but it equally applies to the other large economies in Continental Europe. The paper argues that, alongside the amply discussed,...

We show that a minimum wage introduced in the presence of asymmetric information about worker productivities will lead to lower unemployment levels than predicted by the standard labour market model with heterogeneous labour and symmetric information. -- minimum wages ; unemployment ; asymmetric...

Though a lot of work has been done on the distribution of job tenures, we are still uncertain about its main determinants. In this paper, we stress random shocks to match productivity after the start of an employment relation. The specificity of investment makes hiring and separation decisions...

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...

This paper considers the optimal level of firm-specific training by taking into account the positive effect of training on the expected duration of workers current employment. In the framework of an efficiency wage model, a short expected job tenure represents a disamenity that reduces the...

Our paper documents the large labor market wedges created by taxes, subsidies, and regulations included in the Affordable Care Act. The law changes terms of trade in both goods and factor markets for firms offering health insurance coverage. We use a multi-sector (intra-national) trade model to...

The 21st century global decline in productivity growth is not well understood. One possible contributor is a decline in economic dynamism. We explore the contribution of firm formation and employee movement to productivity using administrative data on the population of New Zealand construction...

Combining weekly productivity data with weekly productivity beliefs for a large sample of truckers over two years, we show that workers tend to systematically and persistently over-predict their productivity. If workers are overconfident about their own productivity at the current firm relative...

Why is the employment effect of the minimum wage frequently found to be close to zero? Theory tells us that when wages are below marginal productivity, as with monopsony, employers are able to increase wages without laying off workers, but systematic evidence directly supporting this explanation...

Average wages are considerably lower in agriculture than in the other sectors. We document this fact for thirteen countries ranging from rich (Canada, U.S.) to poor (India, Indonesia). We develop a measure of human capital that accounts for the selection of workers with different unobserved...