This paper assesses whether labor market frictions, in the form of searching and matching, can help explain movements in the labor wedge--the gap between the marginal rate of substitution (MRS) and the marginal productivity of labor in a perfectly competitive business cycle model. Results...

President Pianalto briefly described some forces that will help pull our economy out of its steep decline. She discussed why several long-standing imbalances within the economy will likely cause the recovery to proceed slowly. Finally, she discussed some structural changes in the labor market...

We construct a multiple shock, discrete time version of the Mortensen-Pissarides labor market search model to investigate the basic model’s well-known tendency to underpredict the volatility of key labor market variables. In addition to the standard labor productivity shock, we introduce...

This paper develops and estimates a model of occupational choice and learning that allows for correlated learning across occupation specificabilities. In the labor market, workers learn about their potential outcomes in all occupations, not just their current occupation. Based on what they...

The authors examine 39 years of wage data for workers in mobile occupations within a set of employers in three midwestern cities. They study wage changes during years of rising, falling, and steady inflation to identify regularities that could broaden understanding of the inflationary process at...

This paper constructs a multiple-shock version of the Mortensen-Pissarides labor market search model to investigate the basic model’s well-known tendency to under predict the volatility of key labor market variables. Data on U.S. job finding and job separation probabilities are used to help...

An analysis of variance in individual production workers' wages within and between establishments, using BLS Industry Wage Surveys to examine establishment-based wage differentials.

A demonstration that regional differences in the returns to human capital do not necessarily imply structural differences in regional labor markets, but could be reflecting compensation for regional differences in amenities.

An explanation of the observed relationships between voluntary job turnover and wages over a worker's lifetime, using a model featuring adverse selection.

An overview of some recent findings about the cyclical behavior of the aggregate labor market and its relation to the overall business cycle, discussing theory and measurement issues such as the role of household production, the impact of differences in cyclical behavior of workers with...