This paper analyzes the determinants of lay-offs, job-to-job movements and totalseparations with a unique data set that combines information on individual firmsand their workers. We are in particular interested in whether the lay-offpolicy of firms can explain the relatively high level of...

Labor market theories allowing for search frictions make marked predictions on the effect of the degree of frictions on wages. Often, the effect is predicted to be negative. Despite the popularity of these theories, this has never been tested. We perform tests with matched worker-firm data. The...

Equilibrium search models are useful tools for the evaluation oflabor market policies. Recently developed equilibrium search models of thelabor market are able to fit the wage distribution perfectly with longitudinallabor supply data, by estimating an appropriate distribution of...