Empirical evidence suggests that networks of personal relations are important in the micro dynamics of labor markets: even in modern capitalistic economies a high share of jobs are filled by social referrals. This paper aims at shedding light on an apparent puzzle concerning the relationship...

This paper documents the existence and main patterns of inter-industry wage differentials across a large number of industries for 8 EU countries (Belgium, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, and Spain) at two points in time (in general 1995 and 2002) and explores possible...

This paper investigates inter-industry wage differentials in Belgium, taking advantage of access to a unique matched employer-employee data set covering all the years from 1999 to 2005. Findings show the existence of large wage differentials among workers with the same observed characteristics...

I describe insights into wage dynamics and downward wage rigidity obtained from more than two hundred interviews with business people, labor leaders, and various labor market intermediaries and made in the early 1990s in the Northeast of the United States. I explain the morale explanation for...

We examine gender differences in career progression and promotions in central banking, a stereotypical male-dominated occupation, using confidential anonymized personnel data from the European Central Bank (ECB) during the period 2003-2017. A wage gap emerges between men and women within a few...

This paper uses information from a rich firm-level survey on wage and price-setting procedures, in around 15,000 firms in 15 European Union countries, to investigate the relative importance of internal versus external factors in the setting of wages of newly hired workers. The evidence suggests...

This paper interprets accidents occurring on the way to and from work as negative health shocks to identify the causal effect of health on labor market outcomes. We argue that in our sample of exactly matched treated and control workers, these health shocks are quasi-randomly assigned. A...

Empirical evidence suggests that relative age, which is determined by date of birth and the school entry cutoff date, has a causal effect on track choice. Using a sample of male labor market entrants drawn from Austrian register data, I analyze whether the initial assignment to different school...

This paper explores individual motives for volunteering. The analysis is based on the interpretation of volunteering as a consumption good (consumption model) or as a mean to increase individual's own human capital (investment model). We present an econometric framework taking into account self...

This paper focuses on the euro area wage structure and its potential determinants from a sectoral viewpoint. Merging information from the OECD Structural Analysis database with data from the EU Labour Force Survey, we construct a cross-country panel of 22 industries in 8 euro area countries for...