This paper studies how schooling admission tests affect economic performance in an economy where individuals are endowed with both academic and non academic abilities and both abilities matter for labor productivity. We develop a simple model with selective government held schools, where...

We investigate the use of performance appraisal (PA) in German Firms. First, we derive hypotheses on individual and job based determinants of PA usage. Based on a representative German data set on individual employees, we test these hypotheses and also explore the impact of PA on performance pay...

Based on two representative samples of employees, the German Socio Economic Panel and the European Social Survey, we explore the relation between certain measures of control in employment relationships (i.e. working time regulations, use of performance appraisal systems, monitoring by...

We empirically investigate possible distortions in subjective performance evaluations. A key hypothesis is that evaluations are more upward biased the closer the social ties between supervisor and appraised employee. We test this hypothesis with a company data set from a call center organization...

We present evidence from an experiment in which groups select a leader to compete against the leaders of other groups in a real-effort task that they have all performed in the past. We find that women are selected much less often as leaders than is suggested by their individual past performance....

A central concern in economics is to understand the interplay between institutions and labor markets. In this paper we argue that laboratory experiments are a powerful tool for studying labor market institutions. One of the most important advantages is the ability to implement truly exogenous...

This paper examines whether contacts between caseworkers in public employment offices and employers impact on the reemployment chances of the unemployed they counsel. This analysis is made possible through a large administrative dataset on unemployed combined with an extensive survey of...

We evaluate a randomized experiment of a statistical support system developed to assist caseworkers in Swiss employment offices in choosing appropriate active labour market programmes for their unemployed clients. This statistical support system predicted the labour market outcome for each...

In July 2004, the Belgian government intensified monitoring within the Unemployment Insurance scheme. Workers claiming unemployment benefits for more than 13 months are notified that past job-search behavior will be monitored 8 months later. In one region the target group is counseled shortly...

Labor Market Intermediaries (LMIs) are entities or institutions that interpose themselves between workers and firms to facilitate, inform, or regulate how workers are matched to firms, how work is accomplished, and how conflicts are resolved. This paper offers a conceptual foundation for...