Principal-agent models take outside options, determining participation and incentive constraints, as given. We construct a general equilibrium model where workers' reservation wages and the maximum punishment acceptable before workers quit are instead determined endogenously. We simultaneously...

This paper develops a framework to understand the role of interpersonal interactions in the labor market including task assignment and wages. Effective interpersonal interactions involve caring, to establish cooperation, and at the same time directness, to communicate in an unambiguous way. The...

Despite indications that people skills are important for understanding individual labor-market outcomes and have become more important over the last decades, there is little analysis by economists. This paper shows that people skills are important determinants of labor-market outcomes, including...

We use novel data from the Berea Panel Study to reexamine the labor market mechanisms generating the beauty wage premium. We find that the beauty premium varies widely across jobs with different task requirements. Specifically, in jobs where existing research such as Hamermesh and Biddle (1994)...

Using linked employer-employee data from Brazil, we document a large gender pay gap due to women working at lower-paying employers with better nonpay attributes. To interpret these facts, we develop an equilibrium search model with endogenous firm pay, amenities, and hiring. We provide a...

This paper builds, identifies and estimates a model of the labor market that features strategic interactions in wage setting and two-sided heterogeneity in order to shed light on the sources of wage inequality. We provide a tractable characterization of the model equilibrium and demonstrate its...

This paper studies the effects of automation in economies with labor market distortions that generate worker rents--wages above opportunity cost--in some jobs. We show that automation targets high-rent tasks, dissipating rents and amplifying wage losses from automation. It also reduces...

Recent wage growth at the bottom of the earnings distribution in the U.S. has reversed a decades-long trend of widening wage inequality. Numerous state and local minimum wage increases have overtaken an effectively non-binding federal minimum, and robust labor demand in the post-pandemic...

This paper studies the interaction between the decrease in the gender pay gap and the stagnation in the careers of younger workers, analyzing data from the United States, Italy, Canada, and the United Kingdom. We propose a model of the labor market in which a larger supply of older workers can...

Countries around the world are enacting pay transparency policies to combat pay discrimination. 71% of OECD countries have done so since 2000. Most are enacting transparency horizontally, revealing pay between co-workers of similar seniority within a firm. While these policies have narrowed...