We test the hypothesis that locus of control – one's perception of control over events in life – influences search by affecting beliefs about the efficacy of search effort in a laboratory experiment. We find that reservation offers and effort are increasing in the belief that one's efforts...

We examine how immigrants in Canada fare in terms of promotions relative to their native peers. Using linked employer-employee data and firm effects, we identify the extent to which differences in promotion outcomes result from immigrants sorting into firms offering "dead-end" jobs versus facing...

We study strategic communication between a principal and an agent when both have private information that collectively determines the principal's optimal decision. The principal's possession of decision-relevant information makes the agent uncertain how her report influences the principal's...

Modeling the incentive effects of competitions among employees for promotions or financial rewards, economists have largely ignored the effects of competition on effort provision once the competition is finished. In a laboratory experiment, we examine how competition outcomes affect the...

This paper studies a cheap talk model in which two senders having partial and non-overlapping private information simultaneously communicate with an uninformed receiver. The sensitivity of the receiverʼs ideal action to one senderʼs private information depends on the other senderʼs private...

We ask whether employer learning in the wage-setting process depends on skill type and skill importance to productivity, using measures of seven premarket skills and data for each skill’s importance to occupation-specific productivity. Before incorporating importance measures, we find...

We ask whether the role of employer learning in the wage-setting process depends on skill type and skill importance to productivity. Combining data from the NLSY79 with O*NET data, we use Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery scores to measure seven distinct types of pre-market skills that...