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...

Surveying employment-related newspaper advertisements over several centuries, we identify four eras (neither workers nor firms posted ads, mostly workers posted, mostly firms posted, both parties posted). These eras correspond to alternative equilibria in a strategic coordination game describing...