Firing frictions and renegotiation costs affect worker and firm preferences for rigid wages versus individualized Nash bargaining in a standard model of equilibrium unemployment, in which workers vary by observable skill. Rigid wages permit savings on renegotiation costs and prevent workers from...

This paper examines changes in individual earnings during positive and negative growth periods in three Latin American economies: Argentina, Mexico, and Venezuela. We ask whether those individuals who start in the best economic position are those who experience the largest earnings gains or the...

This paper investigates how enforcement of labor regulation affects the firm’s use of informal employment and its impact on firm performance. Using firm level data on informal employment and firm performance, and administrative data on enforcement of regulation at the city level, we show that...

This paper investigates the effects of labor market integration, in the form of worker mobility, in a model with long-term labor contracts that lead to wage rigidities and unemployment. Reflecting the interdependence of regional labor markets, we develop a general-equilibrium framework where the...

We study the influence of social networks on labor market transitions. We develop the first model where social ties and job status coevolve through time. Our key assumption is that the probability of formation of a new tie is greater between two employed individuals than between an employed and...

This paper surveys the existing empirical research that uses search theory to empirically analyze labor supply questions in a structural framework, using data on individual labor market transitions and durations, wages, and individual characteristics. The starting points of the literature are...

We extend the concept of competitive search equilibrium to environments with private information, and in particular adverse selection. Principals (e.g. employers or agents who want to buy assets) post contracts, which we model as revelation mechanisms. Agents (e.g. workers, or asset holders)...

Every working day in the United States, 90,000 jobs disappear—and an equal number are created. This discovery has radically altered the way economists think about how labor markets work. Without this necessary phenomenon of "creative destruction," our economies would experience much lower...

The following development proposes to focus on an underestimated aspect of the Russian restructuring process, namely the evolution of single industry areas throughout transition. We argue that the highly concentrated structure of the post-soviet labour market influences the transformation trend...