We design a survey that asks firms about the obstacles that discourage them from hiring despite having potential needs. Using Danish administrative data and subjective beliefs elicited from our survey, we show how hiring obstacles vary across firms. Over two-thirds of employers agree that skill...

We present new evidence on how employment growth varies across firm types (size, productivity, and wage) and over the business cycle using Danish data covering almost 30 years. We decompose net employment growth into two recruitment margins: net hirings from/to employment (poaching) and net...

We document the consequences of losing a job across countries using a harmonized research design. Workers in Denmark and Sweden experience the lowest earnings declines following job displacement, while workers in Italy, Spain, and Portugal experience losses three times as high. French and...

The rate at which workers switch employers without experiencing a spell of unemployment is one of the most important labor market indicators. However, Employer-to-Employer (EE) transitions are hard to measure in widely used matched employer-employee datasets such as those available in the US. We...

We investigate whether workers reallocate up firm productivity and wage job ladders, and the cyclicality of this process. We document that productivity is a better measure of the job ladder than the average wage, since high productivity firms relative to low poach more workers than high wage...

This paper studies labour market policy in a society where differently gifted individuals can invest in training to further increase their labour market productivity. Furthermore, the government seeks both efficiency and equity. Frictions in the matching process create unemployment and...