We evaluate a temporary public sector employment program targeted at individuals with weak labor market attachment, applying dynamic inverse probability weighting to account for dynamic selection. We show that the program is successful in increasing employment and reducing social assistance....

The Peter Principle captures two stylized facts about hierarchies: first, promotions often place employees into jobs for which they are less well suited than for that previously held. Second, demotions are extremely rare. Why do organizations not correct 'wrong' promotion decision? This paper...

This paper analyzes the effect of labor and product market regulation in a dynamic stochastic equilibrium with search frictions. Modeling multiple-worker firms allows us to distinguish between the exit-and-entry (extensive) margin, and the hiring-and-firing (intensive) margin. We characterize...

Goals are an important source of motivation. But little is known about why and how people set them. We address these questions in a model based on two stylized facts from psychology and behavioral economics: i) Goals serve as reference points for performance. ii) Present-biased preferences...

Self-administered rewards are ubiquitous. They serve as incentives for personal accomplishments and are widely recommended as tools for overcoming self-control problems. However, it seems puzzling why self-rewards can work: the prospect of a reward has a motivating force only if the threat of...

It is a puzzle why people often evaluate consequences of choices separately (narrow bracketing) rather than jointly (broad bracketing). We study the hypothesis that a present-biased individual, who faces two tasks, may bracket his goals narrowly for motivational reasons. Goals motivate because...

We characterize how public insurance schemes are constrained by hidden financial transactions. When non-exclusive private insurance entails increasing unit transaction costs, public transfers are only partly offset by hidden private transactions, and can influence consumption allocation. We show...

This paper contributes to the debate on the effects of trade versus technological change on wage differentials. We propose an explanation of the stylized facts which is based on interactions between openness and technological change because of labor market institutions and government...

We consider an economy where individuals privately choose effort and trade competitively priced securities that pay off with effort-determined probability. We show that if insurance against a negative shock is sufficiently incomplete, then standard functional form restrictions ensure that...