Redistribution programs are constrained because those not working may be either unable to work, voluntarily unemployed or involuntarily unemployed. The inability to distinguish among these three cases inhibits the targeting of transfers to those most in need. Enabling the government to monitor...

We examine how three sources of asymmetric information affect the supply of entrepreneurs and unemployment. In the first case, banks cannot observe entrepreneurs' risk of failure so ration credit. This increases the number of entrepreneurs and the level of unemployment. In the second case, firms...

We examine how three sources of asymmetric information affect the supply of entrepreneurs and unemployment. In the first case, banks cannot observe entrepreneurs' risk of failure so ration credit. This increases the number of entrepreneurs and the level of unemployment. In the second case, firms...

We examine whether minimum wages can fulfill a useful role as part of an optimal non-linear income tax scheme. In this setting, governments cannot observe household abilities, only their incomes. Redistributing according to income, the government is constrained by a set of incentive constraints....

This paper sheds new light on the effects of the minimum wage on employment from a two-sided theoretical perspective, in which firms’ job offer and workers’ job acceptance decisions are disentangled. Minimum wages reduce job offer incentives and increase job acceptance incentives. We show...

Quantifying the welfare effects of trade liberalization is a core issue in international trade. Existing frameworks assume perfect labor markets and therefore ignore the effects of aggregate employment changes for welfare. We develop a quantitative trade framework which explicitly models labor...

The “Great Recession” resulted in many business closings and foreclosures, but what effect did it have on business formation? On the one hand, recessions decrease potential business income and wealth, but on the other hand they restrict opportunities in the wage/salary sector leaving the net...

Efficiency wages theories argue that the threat of firing, coupled with a high unemployment rate, is a mechanism that discourages employee shirking in asymmetric information contexts. Our empirical analysis aims to verify the role of unemployment as a worker discipline device, considering the...

We investigate the relationship between unemployment and growth in China. We find considerable differences in the nature of this relationship across Chinese regions. We argue that this may reflect the different progress in transition across regions, in line with the Aghion-Blanchard model of...

We use the differences between life satisfaction and emotional well-being of employed and unemployed persons to analyze how a person’s employment status affects cognitive well-being. Our results show that unemployment has a negative impact on cognitive, but not on affective well-being, which...