This paper presents a theory explaining the labor market matching process through microeconomic incentives. There are heterogeneous variations in the characteristics of workers and jobs, and firms face adjustment costs in responding to these variations. Matches and separations are described...

We consider a theoretical model in which unions not only take the outside option into account, but also base their wage-setting decisions on an internal reference, called the fairness reference. Wage and employment outcomes and the shape of the aggregate wage-setting curve depend on the weight...

We build an analytically and computationally tractable stochastic equilibrium model of unemployment in heterogeneous labor markets. Facing search frictions within markets and reallocation frictions between markets, workers endogenously separate from employment and endogenously reallocate between...

In dynamic wage bargaining models it is usually assumed that individual unemployment benefits are a fraction of the average wage level. In most countries, however, unemployment benefits are instead tied to the previous level of individually earned wages. We show how the analysis has to be...

Do firms reduce employment when their insiders (established, incumbent employees) claim higher wages? The conventional answer in the theoretical literature is that insider power has no influence on employment, provided that the newly hired employees (entrants) receive their reservation wages....

Suppose insiders use their market power to push up their wages, while entrants receive their reservation wages. How will employment be affected? In addressing this question, we focus on the role of on-the-job training. We show that an insider wage hike reduces recession-time employment but, in...

This paper studies the extent to which the cyclicality of gross and net occupational mobility shapes that of aggregate unemployment and its duration distribution. Using the SIPP, we document the relation between workers' (gross and net) occupational mobility and unemployment duration over the...

This paper studies the cyclical behaviour of earnings risk and career changes. We document that the procyclical skewness of the earnings growth distribution arises mostly from the earnings changes of employer and occupation switchers. To uncover their relative importance in driving cyclical...

We propose a novel framework that integrates the "task approach" for a more precise production modeling into the search-and-matching model with low- and high-skilled workers, and wage setting by labor unions. We establish the relationship between task reallocation and changes in wage pressure,...