We examine the effect of language acquisition on the growth of immigrants' earnings. We gathered data on recent Soviet immigrants to Israel that include retrospective questions on earnings and language ability on entry into their current job. Language acquisition is found to interact positively...

Since applying for jobs is costly, workers prefer applying where their employment probability is high and, therefore, to jobs attracting fewer higher quality applicants. Since creating vacancies is expensive, firms create more vacancies when job-seeking is high. Our model captures these ideas...

We argue that Labor Market Segmentation theory is a good alternative to standard views of the labor market. Since it is sometimes argued that labor market segmentation theory is untestable, we first consider the uses of theory and the attributes of a good theory. We then argue that labor market...

This paper briefly reviews the empirical evidence on labor market segmentation and presents some new results on the similarity of the pattern of segmentation across 66 different countries. The paper goes on to consider how unemployment might be understood in a labor market segmentation...

Sri Lanka has a significant chronic unemployment problem. Depending on time period and the definition of unemployment it varies from the low teens to over twenty percent. Nearly all of this unemployment is concentrated among young people who are looking for their first job. Unemployment duration...

Almost all labor supply models are estimated under the assumption that workers are free to choose their hours. However, theory, casual empiricism and survey data suggest that many workers are not free to vary the hours within a job. Consequently, labor supply estimates based on actual hours of...

This paper offers some observations on employee crime, economic theories of crime, limits on bonding, and the efficiency wage hypothesis. We demonstrate that the simplest economic theories of crime predict that profit-maximizing firms should follow strategies of minimal monitoring and large...

We subject our dual labor market model to a goodness of test fit and compare the results with those obtained using a single equation model with a complex error structure. The dual labor market does an excellent job of predicting the wage distribution except for failing to explain bunching at...

Most models of implicit lifetime contracts imply that at any particular point in time, workers' wages and value of marginal product (VMP) will diverge. As a result, the contract will have to specify hours as well as wages, since firms will desire to prevent workers from working more when the...

Neoclassical theory has been misrepresented in the segmented economy literature. Consequently, most tests of "structural" vs. "neoclassical" models are inadequate. Moreover, segmented economy theorists have concentrated on the least significant departures of segmented models from neoclassical...