Standard program evaluations implicitly assume that individuals are perfectly informed about the considered policy change and the related institutional rules. This seems not very plausible in many contexts, as diverse examples show. However, evidence on how incomplete information affects the...

Using the introduction of fixed long-term unemployment benefits in Germany in 2005 as a unique experiment we find strong evidence that lower unemployment benefit has an adverse effect on wages. We use panel data to identify and estimate the effect of this structural break. In western Germany the...

We exploit administrative data on exact commuting distances for a large sample of German employees and study the relation of commuting and wages. We find that it requires 1.5 times as much money in terms of higher wages for job changers to accept an increase of their commute as compared to their...

This paper studies match formation and dissolution in frictional marriage markets under labor market uncertainty. We propose a search model with transferable utility in which ex-ante heterogeneous men and women simultaneously search for partners in the marriage market and switch between...

This paper investigates the spatial connotations of job search methods of unemployed people, and in particular whether search methods lead to local vis-à-vis non-local jobs. The data set used is the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), a longitudinal survey collecting yearly interviews for...

Combining a spatial equilibrium model with a search-matching unemployment model, this paper analyzes the willingness to pay for regional amenities and the regional quality of life when wages, rents, and unemployment risk compensate for local amenities and disamenities. The results are compared...

This paper proposes a new approach to evaluate the macroeconomic effects of the Hartz IV reform in Germany, which reduced the generosity of long-term unemployment benefits. We use a model with different unemployment durations, where the reform initiates both a partial effect and an equilibrium...

We study optimal promotion decisions of hierarchical firms, with one junior and one senior managerial position, which interact in a search and matching labour market. Workers acquire experience over time while being employed in a junior position and the firm has to determine the experience level...