This paper analyzes the career progression of skilled and unskilled workers, with a focus on how careers are affected by economic downturns and whether formal skills, acquired early on, can shield workers from the effect of recessions. Using detailed administrative data for Germany for numerous...

We develop an empirical search-matching model which is suitable for analyzing the wage, employment and welfare impact of regulation in a labor market with heterogeneous workers and jobs. To achieve this we develop an equilibrium model of wage determination and employment which extends the...

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...

This paper develops the nonparametric identification of models with production complementarities, worker-firm specific disutility of labor and search frictions. Mobility in the model is subject to preference shocks, and we assume that firms can write wage contracts. We develop a constructive...

Mankiw [1982] explores the Permanent Income Hypothesis implication that durable expenditures follow an ARMA(1,1) representation. He finds that durable expenditures are represented by an AR(1) process which implies that the rate of depreciation of durables, under the PIH model, is 100%. This...

This paper studies the effects of subsidies on durable goods markets. In particular, we study a recent policy in France in which the governments of Balladur and Jupp‚ subsidized the replacement of old cars with new ones. To study this policy, we construct a dynamic stochastic discrete choice...

Economists are often puzzled by the stronger public opposition to immigration than trade, since the two policies have similar effects on wages. Unlike trade, however, immigration can alter the composition of the local population, imposing potential externalities on natives. While previous...

Positive assortative matching refers to the tendency of individuals with similar characteristics to form partnerships. Measuring the extent to which assortative matching differs between two economies is challenging when the marginal distributions of the characteristic along which sorting takes...

This paper evaluates the effects of the implementation of a structured early stimulation curriculum combined with a nutritional intervention through public large-scale parenting support services for vulnerable families in rural Colombia, known as FAMI, using a clustered randomized controlled...

This paper uses a RCT to estimate the effectiveness of guided instruction methods as implemented in under-performing schools in Chile. The intervention improved performance substantially for the first cohort of students, but not the second. The effect is mainly accounted for by children from...