We develop a model that combines monopolistic competition on goods markets with skill-type heterogeneity on the labor market to analyze the effects of trade and migration on welfare and inequality. Skill-type heterogeneity and partial specificity to firms' endogenously chosen skill requirements...

We argue that the narrative of variety-induced gains from trade in differentiated goods needs revision. If producing differentiated varieties of a good requires differentiated skills and if the work force is heterogeneous in these skills, then firms are likely to have monopsony power. We show...

This paper aims at explaining two stylized facts of the Lost Decade in Japan: rising wage inequalities and increasing firm-level productivity differentials. We build a model where firms can choose between efficiency wages with endogenous effort and competitive wages, and show that it can...