This thesis is comprised of three chapters. The first chapter develops a statistical model that enriches the role that firms playin wage determination, allowing firms to influence both average wages as well as the returns to observable worker characteristics. I exploit the hierarchical nature of...

This paper examines the changes in relative earnings of workers with different education levels during Vietnam’s transition. It is found that females enjoy a higher return to education than males do in 1998, reversing the situation observed five years ago. A large fall in the returns to...

We study changes in the wage structures in nine EU countries over 1995-2002 and the role of demand, supply and institutional developments in shaping these changes. Using comparable cross-country microeconomic data, we compute for each country and at each decile of the wage distribution, the part...

A pesar de una rápida disminución del desempleo, los salarios reales en España apenas aumentaron durante el periodo 1995-2006. Una posible explicación de este comportamiento se refiere a la importancia de los efectos composición derivados de algunos cambios estructurales, tales como el...

Economics

The dissertation consists of two main parts. The first part presents a search model with non-stationary reservation wages. In the model the reservation wage declines over time and at a certain point is equal to utility of non-participation, after which it is not optimal to search and workers...