This article shows how much a shock to the ability of firms to hire qualified workers accounts for the rise in unemployment. Using a matching function approach, the author finds that such a shock implies an unemployment rate of no more than 7.1 percent, much below the actual unemployment rate...

During the last thirty years, labor markets in advanced economies were characterized by their remarkable polarization. As job opportunities in middle-skill occupations disappeared, employment opportunities concentrated in the highest- and lowest-wage occupations. I develop a two-country...

In this paper I investigate the causal relationship between labor market polarization and intergenerational mobility, two of the most important features of advanced labor markets in recent decades. The former relates to the disappearance of middle-wage routine jobs and the rise of both high- and...