Recent theories suggest that consumers' search efforts are a function of prices and prices changes, respectively. This may help to explain the 'rockets and feathers' phenomenon often assigned to collusion – prices rise like rockets when costs increase and fall like feathers when costs...

Based on rich administrative data from Germany, we address the differences in occupation specific job-matching processes where an occupation consists of jobs that share extensive commonalities in their required skills and tasks. These differences can be explained by the degree of standardization...