Around the turn of the century, China experienced perhaps the largest labor restructuring program in the world. This paper uses a new data set of Chinese industrial enterprises to examine what leads to downsizing, and tries to understand the effects of labor downsizing on firms' technical...

We focus on the dynamic relation between wage increases, promotions and job changes. We relate our empirical analyses to the theoretical model of Gibbons and Waldman (1999). In the empirical analyses we use the Portuguese matched employer-employee data Quadros de Pessoal. We conclude from...

In this paper we study the occupational progress and earnings attainment of immigrants in Germany over time and compare them to native Germans. Our analysis is guided by the human capital and segmented labor market theories. To assess the separate effects of occupational segmentation and...

When labor incomes approach subsistence levels, the labor supply curve slopes outward, because the fight for survival mandates households to look for longer work hours in response to falling wage rates. We explore conditions under which near-subsistence scenarios may imply wage traps, labor...

This paper examines the disincentive effects of perceived underpayment on individuals? exerted effort and promotion. To this end we develop a theoretical framework and obtain empirical evidence by analysing British academia data. We find that, tenured academics will tend to invest less effort in...

This study is the first to provide a systematic measure of bribery using micro-level data on reported earnings, household spending and asset holdings. We use the compensating differential framework and the estimated sectoral gap in reported earnings and expenditures to identify the size of...

This paper summarizes evidence for the existence of a wage curve a downward-sloping relationship between the level of pay and the local unemployment rate in modern micro data. At the time of writing, the curve has been found in 40 nations. Its elasticity is approximately -0.1. -- wage...

At first blush, most advances in labour demand were achieved by the late 1980s. Since then progress might appear to have stalled. We argue to the contrary that significant progress has been made in understanding labour market frictions and imperfections, and in modelling search behaviour and...

This paper examines the disincentive effects of perceived underpayment on individuals' exerted effort and promotion. To this end we develop a theoretical framework and obtain empirical evidence by analysing British academia data. We find that, tenured academics will tend to invest less effort in...

Labor market theories allowing for search frictions make marked predictions on the effect of the degree of frictions on wages. Often, the effect is predicted to be negative. Despite the popularity of these theories, this has never been tested. We perform tests with matched worker-firm data. The...