Labor markets in the transition economies of Central and Eastern Europe underwent adramatic transformation. Notably, this transformation took place within just a few years. Untilthe mid-2000s job opportunities were scarce and unemployment was high. But since thenlabor demand has picked up and...

We measure labor market frictions using a strategy that bridges design-based and structuralapproaches: estimating an equilibrium search model using reduced-form minimum wageelasticities identified from border discontinuities and fitted with Bayesian and LIML methods.We begin by providing the...

About one in four workers challenges her dismissal in front of a labor court in France. Using adata set of individual labor disputes brought to French courts over the years 1996 to 2003,we examine the impact of labor court activity on labor market flows. First, we present asimple theoretical...

This paper analyzes the effect of firing costs on aggregate productivity growth. For thispurpose, a model of endogenous growth through selection and imitation is developed. It isconsistent with recent evidence on firm dynamics and on the importance of reallocation forproductivity growth...

We use individual data for Great Britain over the period 1992-2009 to compare the probabilitythat employed and unemployed job seekers find a job and the quality of the job they find. Thejob finding rate of unemployed job seekers is 50 percent higher than that of employed jobseekers, and this...

The introduction of firm size into labor search models raises the question how wages are setwhen average and marginal product differ. We develop and analyze an alternative to theexisting bargaining framework: Firms compete for labor by publicly posting long- termcontracts. In such a competitive...

Payroll taxes represent a major distortionary influence of governments on labor markets. Thispaper examines the role of payroll taxation and the social safety net for cyclical fluctuations ina nonmonetary economy with labor market frictions and unemployment insurance, when thelatter is only...

We study compensation packages in family and non-family firms. Using matched employeremployeedata for a representative sample of French establishments, we first show thatfamily firms pay on average lower wages to their workers. We find that part of this wage gapis due to differences in...

In this paper we study the joint decision process of changing the structure of jobs and layingoff individual workers in a firm that downsizes its workforce. A hierarchical decision model isproposed and estimated using personnel data from a firm in demise comparing thecharacteristics of the...

Portuguese firms engage in intense reallocation, most employers simultaneously hire andseparate from workers, resulting in a large heterogeneity of flows and excess turnover. Largeand older firms have lower flows, but high excess turnover rates. In small firms, hires andseparations move...