We analyze the impact of unemployment benefits and minimum wagesusing an equilibrium search model which allows for dispersion ofbenefits and productivity levels, job-to-job transitions, andstructural and frictional unemployment. The estimation method usesreadily available aggregate data on...

This paper develops a model in which workers are heterogeneous in their intrinsic motivation to work at a firm. We characterise optimal incentive schemes and examine how the firm can attract and select highly motivated workers to fill a vacancy when workers’ motivation is private information....

We study the relationship between offshoring and the prevalence and intensity of labor market imperfections at the firm level in Belgium and the Netherlands. Wagemarkup pricing stemming from workers' monopoly power is more prevalent than wagemarkdown pricing originating from firms' monopsony...

We analyze the redistributional (dis)advantages of a minimum wage over income taxation in competitive labor markets, without imposing assumptions on the (in)efficiency of labor rationing. Compared to a distributionally equivalent tax change, a minimum-wage increase raises involuntary...

This paper examines the relationship between firm births and job creation in Great Britain. We use a new data set for 60 British regions, covering the whole of Great Britain, between 1980 and 1998. The central theme of the paper is that, with the exception of a recent paper by Audretsch and...

While the employment effects of minimum wages are usually reported to be small (suggesting low substitutability between skill types), direct estimates suggest a much larger degree of substitutability. This paper argues that this paradox is largely due to a bias induced by the aggregation of...