This study explores what determines employers' violations of the wage contracts of workers on H-1B temporary work visas, which occur when firms pay those workers below the promised prevailing or "market" wage. A theoretical framework is proposed that predicts more violations during economic...

Low-skilled jobs: the reality behind the popular perceptions -- What are low-skilled jobs? -- Who fills low-skilled positions? -- The economic environment facing workers in low-skilled positions -- The argument for skills -- Policy solutions -- First chance: building skills in public schools --...

We present new theory and empirical evidence concerning racial discrimination in promotions. In our model, promotions signal worker ability. When tasks differ substantially across levels of a job hierarchy, the opportunity cost (in terms of foregone output) of not promoting qualified nonwhite...

In a multi-task, market-based promotion tournament model, under different environments concerning employer learning about worker ability, it is shown that:i) Asymmetric learning in multi-task jobs is a necessary condition for "strategic shirking" (i.e., underperforming on certain tasks to...