"The welfare effects of trade shocks depend crucially on the nature and magnitude of the costs workers face in moving between sectors. The existing trade literature does not directly address this, assuming perfect mobility or complete immobility, or adopting reduced-form approaches to...

We examine self-enforcing contracts between risk-averse workers and risk-neutral firms (the ‘invisible handshake') in a labor market with search frictions. Employers promise as much wage smoothing as they can, consistent with incentive conditions that ensure they will not renege during...