It is often argued that informal labor markets in developing countries promote growth by reducing the impact of regulation. On the other hand informality may reduce the amount of social protection offered to workers. We extend the wage-posting framework of Burdett and Mortensen (1998) to allow...

Macroeconomic models often incorporate some form of wage stickiness to help account for employment fluctuations. However, a recent literature calls in to question this approach, citing evidence of new hire wage cyclicality from panel data studies as evidence for contractual wage flexibility for...

Evidence from different sources shows that spouses' retirement decisions are correlated. Retirement policies affecting individuals in couples are therefore also likely to affect behavior of their spouses. It is therefore important to account for joint features in modeling retirement. This paper...

We examine the connection between taxes paid and benefits accrued under the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program on both the intensive and extensive margins. We perform these calculations for stylized workers given the existing benefit structure and disability hazard rates. On the...

In this paper I present some evidence on the magnitudes and determinants of job vacancy rates at the firm level. The data are from a survey of firms in 1980 and 1982, as well as from 1980 Census data on industry and local area characteristics. The results show that overall job vacancy rates are...

We perform a quantitative analysis of observed changes in U.S. between-group inequality between 1984 and 2003. We use an assignment framework with many labor groups, equipment types, and occupations in which changes in inequality are caused by changes in workforce composition, occupation demand,...

This paper models a frictional labor market where employers endogenously discriminate against the long term unemployed. The estimated model replicates recent experimental evidence which documents that interview invitations for observationally equivalent workers fall sharply as unemployment...