This paper studies the value of firms and their hiring and firing decisions in an environment where the productivity of the workers depends on how well they match with their co-workers and the firm acts as a coordinating device. Match quality derives from a production technology whereby workers...

The recent financial crises, alongside a dramatic rise in unemployment on both sides of the Atlantic, suggest that financial shocks do translate into the labor markets. In this paper we first document that financial recessions amplify labor market volatility and Okun's elasticity over the...

We examine the origins and outcome of entrepreneurship on the basis of exceptionally comprehensive Norwegian matched worker-firm-owner data. In contrast to most existing studies, our notion of entrepreneurship not only comprises self-employment, but also employment in partly self-owned limited...

Partner selection is a vital feature of human behavior with important consequences for individuals, families, and society. Hypergamy occurs when a husband's earning capacity systematically exceeds that of his wife. We provide a theoretical framework that rationalizes hypergamy even in the...

All OECD countries have either legally mandated severance pay or compensations imposed by industry-level bargaining in case of employer initiated job separations. According to the extensive literature on Employment Protection Legislation such transfers are either ineffective or highly...

In an optimizing model of epidemics several externalities arise when agents shield to avoid infection. Optimizing behaviour delays herd immunity but also reduces overall infections to approximately the minimum consistent with herd immunity. For reasonable parameter values, and with no vaccine,...

The decisions of firms on investment and hiring play a crucial role in business cycle fluctuations. This paper explores their dynamic behavior in the presence of frictions. It does so within a unified framework, stressing their mutual dependence and placing the emphasis on their joint,...

The phenomenon of workers moving from a poor to a rich economy is high on the political agenda. When a worker moves to a richer economy, what is gained by the move? The empirical challenge in giving an answer stems from the difficulty to disentangle income differences from many other...

The Arab population in Israel constitutes an ethnic minority, at around 20% of the population. The economy of this minority is characterized by inferior outcomes relative to the Jewish majority by all indicators, including employment, wages, occupational status, social welfare, education, and...

Hiring is a costly activity reflecting firms' investment in their workers. Micro-data shows that hiring costs involve production disruption. Thus, cyclical fluctuations in the value of output, induced by price frictions, have consequences for the optimal allocation of hiring activities. We...