Strikes as a consequence of labour conflicts occur about 28 times as much in France as in the Netherlands. This paper examines the institutional differences underlying these differences in strike activity. Our empirical analysis shows that strike activity is high in France if workers were...

Though a lot of work has been done on the distribution of job tenures, we are still uncertain about its main determinants.In this paper, we stress random shocks to match productivity after the start of an employment relation.The specificity of investment makes hiring and separation decisions...

We model entrepreneurship and the emergence of firms as a result of simultaneous bidding for labor services among heterogeneousagents. Unique to our approach is that occupational choices, jobmatching and organizational forms are determined simultaneously, sothat the opportunity costs of...

We present a structural framework for the evaluation of public policies intended to increase job search intensity. Most of the literature defines search intensity as a scalar that influences the arrival rate of job offers; here we treat it as the number of job applications that workers send out....

This paper examines the extent to which human capital theory can explain observed wage differentialsin the Russian Federation. Wage and income dispersion have increased markedly in Russia in the sixyears since the transition began. Some studies conclude that this is an indicator that Russian...

This paper proposes a simple social network model of occupational segregation, generated by the existence of inbreeding bias among individuals of the same social group. If network referrals are important in getting a job, then expected inbreeding bias in the social structure results in different...

This discussion paper resulted in a publication in 'Economics and Human Biology' (forthcoming).<P> Taller individuals typically have occupations with higher social status and higher earnings than shorter individuals. Further, entrepreneurship is associated with high social status in numerous...</p>

We estimate the impact of schooling and capital constraints at the time of startup on the performance of Dutch entrepreneurial ventures, taking into account the potential endogeneity and interdependence of these variables. Instrumental variable estimates indicate that a 1 percentage point...

How valuable are cognitive and social abilities for entrepreneurs’ incomes as compared to employees? We answer three questions: (1) To what extent does a composite measure of ability affect an entrepreneur's earnings relative to employees? (2) Do different cognitive abilities (e.g. math...

We analyze the impact of adolescents' friendship relations in their final-year class of highschool on subsequent labor market success. Based on a typology of network positions we locateeach student within the social system of the school class as either: an isolate, a sycophant,a broker or a...