We estimate a structural dynamic programming model of schooling decisions with unobserved heterogeneity in school ability and market ability on a sample taken from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY). Both the instantaneous utility of attending school and the wage regression...

We examine the determinants of low income transitions using first-order Markov models that control for initial conditions effects (those found to be poor in the base year may be a nonrandom sample) and for attrition (panel retention may also be non-random). Our econometric model is a form of...

The existing literature ignores the fact that in most European countries the strictness of Employment Protection Legislation (EPL) varies across the firm size distribution. In Italy firms are obliged to rehire an unfairly dismissed worker only if they employ more than 15 employees....

This paper develops and tests a new model of asymmetric information in the labour market involving employer learning. In the model, I provide theoretical conditions for the identification – based on the experience and tenure profiles of estimated returns to ability and education – of...

Defensive innovations in developed countries can explain the empirical phenomenon that openness towards trade with less-developed countries does not necessarily induce a substantial increase in the wage differential and trade volumes. Building on step-by-step innovations as introduced by Aghion...

Economic models of household behavior typically yield the prediction that increases in schooling levels and wage rates of married women lead to increases in their labor supply and reductions in fertility. In Italy, as well as in other Southern European countries, low labor market participation...

Utility theory suggests that foreseeable risk should increase the compensation for work. This paper expands on this notion: on basis of utility theory, people should care not only about risk but also about the skewness in the distribution of the compensation paid. In particular, because the...

This paper examines how employment protection legislation affects location decisions of multinationals. Based on a simple theoretical framework, we estimate an empirical model, using OECD-data on bilateral FDI-flows and employment protection indices. We find that, while an ?unfavourable?...

Do firms reduce employment when their insiders (established, incumbent employees) claim higher wages? The conventional answer in the theoretical literature is that insider power has no influence on employment, provided that the newly hired employees (entrants) receive their reservation wages....

This paper extends previous work on the identification of search models in which observed worker productivity is imperfectly observed. In particular, it establishes that these models remain identified even when employment histories are left-censored (i.e. we do not get to follow workers from...