Skill shortages are often portrayed as a major problem for the economies of many countriesincluding the Australian economy. Yet, there is surprisingly little evidence about theirprevalence, causes and consequences. This paper attempts to improve our understandingabout these issues by using...

Recently, papers have started combining the naming of two popular decomposition methods: the Oaxaca-Blinder method and the Kitagawa method, a popular method in demographics and sociology. Although the two approaches have the same objective in terms of decomposing outcome differences in some...

This paper provides evidence about the quality of retrospective childhood health histories given to respondents in the HRS and the PSID. Even though information on early life health events is critical, there is legitimate skepticism about the ability of older respondents to remember specific...

Country-specific factors, such as the wage setting environment, are important determinants in explaining the relative size of the gender wage gap. This paper uses British and Canadian linked employer-employee data to investigate the importance of the workplace for the gender wage gap. Our main...

In this paper we empirically examine differences in search behavior between men and women. We assess hypotheses regarding duration of search, wages and tenure. The hypotheses are derived from two models: the equilibrium search model with discriminatory firms by Black (1995) and an opportunity...

In this paper we estimate the causal effect of a training program for disadvantaged youths on their long-run labor market outcomes. Individuals receive lottery offers to participate in the program, but are allowed to choose when to leave the program and to participate in alternative programs. We...

We estimate the effects of a mandate allocating a third of corporate board seats to workers (shared governance). We study a reform in Germany that abruptly abolished this mandate for certain firms incorporated after August 1994 but locked it in for the older cohorts. In sharp contrast to the...

This study explores the relationship between the adoption of industrial robots and workplace injuries using data from the United States (US) and Germany. Our empirical analyses, based on establishment-level data for the US, suggest that a one standard deviation increase in robot exposure reduces...

No matter the cause, recessions are usually accompanied by some combination of job loss, hiring freezes, wage cuts or hours reductions. In a rapidly evolving economic crisis there is a need for timely information to assess labour market performance and develop strategies to address the problems...

Characterizing the work that people do on their jobs is a longstanding and core issue in labor economics. Traditionally, classification has been done manually. If it were possible to combine new computational tools and administrative wage records to generate an automated crosswalk between job...