This paper estimates a structural model of the employment decision of the firm. Ourestablishment level data displays an extreme degree of rigidity in that employment levels arelargely constant throughout our sample...

We study the effects of liquidity constraints and start-up costs on the relationship betweenwealth and the fraction of entrepreneurs in an economy. We develop a dynamic occupationalchoice model with endogenous wealth and entry into entrepreneurship...

In a perfect labor market severance payments can have no real effects as they can beundone by a properly designed labor contract (Lazear 1990). We give empirical content tothis proposition by estimating the effects of EPL on entry wages and on the tenure-wageprofile in a quasi-experimental...

In this paper I review the empirical evidence on the effects of incarceration on thesubsequent employment and earnings of less-educated young prisoners...

The unemployment rate in France is roughly 6 percentage points higher for African immigrants than for natives. In the US the unemployment rate is approximately 9 percentage points higher for blacks than for whites. Commute time data indicates that minorities face longer commute times to work,...

We use longitudinal data describing couples in Australia from 2001-12 and Germany from 2002-12 to examine how demographic events affect perceived time and financial stress. Consistent with the view of measures of stress as proxies for the Lagrangean multipliers in models of household production,...

Previous studies report a wide range of estimates for how female labor supply responds to childcare prices. We shed new light on this question using a reform that raised the prices of public daycare. Parents respond by reducing public daycare and increasing childcare at home. Parents also reduce...

This paper presents and tests a model that may partially explain why the demand for labor adapts to the availability of labor. In particular, I postulate that the cost of hiring declines with increases in the amount of labor available. The cost of hiring would decrease with a growth in available...

We review the literature on public sector outsourcing to explore if the theoretical predictions from the incomplete contracts literature hold up to recent empirical evidence. Guided by theory, we arrange services according to the type and magnitude of their contractibility problems. The...

Implementing performance pay requires that workers' output be measured. When measurement costs differ among firms, those with a measurement cost advantage choose to implement performance pay. They attract the best workers, and both the level and variability of compensation are higher at these...