Prevailing wage laws, which require that construction workers employed by private contractors on public projects be paid at least the wages and benefits that are "prevailing" for similar work in or near the locality in which the project is located, have been the focus of an extensive policy...

I argue for increased reliance on non-U.S. data and policy evaluations to understand basic labor- market parameters and to predict the effects of changes in U.S. labor-market policies. Foreign experiences generate exogenous shocks to labor costs that create unusual opportunities to measure...

This essay sets out a framework for evaluating empirical work in terms of the ability of the data to provide adequate parameter estimates and hypothesis tests about the true underlying structure. Problems of aggregation, representativeness and structural change are discussed in detail. These...

Literature has shown that air pollution can have short- and long-term adverse effects on physiological and cognitive performance, leading to adverse outcomes in the labor market. In this study, we estimate the effect of increased nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), one of the primary air pollutants, on...

The 21st century global decline in productivity growth is not well understood. One possible contributor is a decline in economic dynamism. We explore the contribution of firm formation and employee movement to productivity using administrative data on the population of New Zealand construction...

We construct a general dynamic structural model of two-sided learning between a firm and its workers. We estimate an empirical version of the model using personnel data from Fokker Aircraft that cover the path of layoffs and quits through its bankruptcy. We find that the firm learns about its...

In this paper, we use a linked employer-employee database from Brazil to evaluate the wage effects of trade reform. With an aggregate (firm-level) analysis of this question, we find that a decline in trade protection is associated with an increase in average wages in exporting firms relative to...